


Rewriting Fiction

by KarmaHope



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Found Family, Mix of 2003 and Brotherhood Elements, OC goes to Amestris fic, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, come join me back in the early 2010s, if you're looking for a nostalgia fic this is it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarmaHope/pseuds/KarmaHope
Summary: Sometimes, extraordinary things happen to the most ordinary people. But as any alchemist well knows, with those extraordinary things come just as extraordinary sacrifices...Sixteen year-old Karmyn Dallas was your average teenager who had her whole life laid out ahead of her. She was in her junior year of high school, and her biggest problems were her cheating ex, the student council, and the fact she still wasn't quite sure what she wanted to go to college for. You know, normal teenager things.When the student council assigned her to show the two new transfer students around school, there was no way she could have expected they were two of her favorite anime characters in the flesh. That was impossible! But, impossible or not, she decides to help them get home. One thing leads to another, and another thing goes terribly wrong. Suddenly, she finds herself with a whole slew of different, bigger problems...A unique take on the old 'OC goes to Amestris' trope, cross-posted from ff.net. Originally posted in 2013 & still in progress.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric/Original Female Character(s), Edward Elric & Original Female Character, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell, Winry Rockbell & Original Character(s)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 14





	1. Monday, May 13 (2013)

**Author's Note:**

> I decided now would be a good time to start cross-posting this fic from FFN. I started writing it in 2013, and I'm posting it now without any edits, as if I had to go through and edit everything, it would never be posted. This does not accurately reflect my writing skill in 2020, but this fic is incredibly important to me, and I'm still writing it today.
> 
> Okay that's a lie. I've cut out the song lyric interludes. I'll make note of the songs that went with each chapter in the notes instead.
> 
> This chapter's song is _The Phoenix_ , by Fall Out Boy.
> 
> We talk about this fic sometimes in my [Discord](https://discord.gg/E5rT8kH). Come join us!

_The harsh slam of a wooden door_ cracked _through the small room like a gunshot, yet the woman within didn’t so much as flinch as she methodically filed the papers she held in her hand. Continuing her task, she didn’t even look up as the man who had entered cussed loudly._

_‘Dammit!’_

_‘Another false alarm?’ The statement was phrased as a question, but there was no doubt as to what the answer would be._

_‘Yeah,’ the dark-haired man muttered. ‘You’d wonder how stupid people have to_ be _in order to get the idea that something like this would work,’ he continued as he ran his fingers along one of the extra desks that were piled in the room._

_‘This has happened before, remember,’ the blonde reminded her commanding officer. ‘It’s not surprising that others would try it.’_

_‘I know.’ Collapsing into the uncomfortable chair that had been placed behind a desk set away from the others, the newly promoted brigadier general groaned in frustration. ‘Why do they always come to_ me _?’ he complained._

_‘Because you were his commanding officer,’ his captain told him. ‘You know him better than anyone, except for Winry, and we can’t call her to Central every time there’s a case. Besides, she’s a civilian and doesn’t even have the authority to make the call.’_

_Plus we shouldn’t get her hopes up, was the unspoken addendum to that statement._

_‘I shouldn’t even be worrying about the brat,’ the brigadier general continued along his previous train of thought. To anyone else, he would have sounded indifferent or even derogatory. ‘Headquarters is still a wreck, the government is in shambles, the jury is still being debated for the corrupt officers’ trials …’_

_‘It’s only been a week,’ she reminded him gently. ‘There’s still time. They’ll turn up – they always do.’_

_‘Yeah,’ the man snorted, ‘and then they cause me paperwork.’_

_‘Speaking of,’ the captain said abruptly as she dropped a sheaf of unfiled papers on the desk in front of him, ‘arrangements have been made for the trip east. We leave in two weeks.’_

_‘Tell the others,’ he instructed her, ‘I’d like to be gone before the trials start.’_

_Before he was dragged into the quagmire that was the remnants of the old regime … and into filling out more paperwork._

_As the blonde-haired woman left the makeshift office, the black-haired man looked down at the sheaf of papers lying on his desk. A photo of a grumpy teenager was clipped onto the top page, one the brigadier hadn’t seen since the Promised Day. Flipping through the report aimlessly, three words caught his eye. Staring down at it, Roy Mustang smiled to himself._

Missing in Action.

_Missing … not deceased._

* * *

Like every teenager, Karmyn Dallas abhorred Monday mornings.

On this particular Monday morning – the morning of May 13, 2013 – she was tired, cranky, and unfortunately very much aware of the pain spiking its way through her wrist. Her right hand fumbled with the car keys as she walked, which didn’t help her frustration at her classmates who shouldn’t have passed their driving tests. Due to them, the Somerville High School parking lot could hardly be considered safe – the number of close calls each morning almost outnumbered the number of parking spaces available to juniors.

Thus it was that the sixteen-year-old girl entered the school in a positively dreadful mood. Stalking brusquely to locker number 360, she did her best to ignore those around her. Even on a good day, she had no patience for the cliques and drama that was the quintessence of high school. She kicked the volume on her iPhone up another notch, allowing the sounds of Fall Out Boy’s comeback album to drown out every other noise that tried to assault her ears. She eyed a couple making out against the lockers, rolled her eyes, and scoffed quietly at the display.

On a normal day, she wouldn’t mind the PDA as much. Usually she would have looked forward to kissing her own boyfriend. But now … now it didn’t look like she would be kissing him again anytime soon – not after hearing Elizabeth Carson raving in English class about how good he’d been in bed.

It was the second time in that many months that she’d heard about him cheating on her. Forgive her if she didn’t feel like having it thrown back in her face again so soon.

Music blasted into her ears, the loud rock like honey to her agitated soul. It didn’t even matter that it had been David who had gotten her into Fall Out Boy in the first place. Her music was her escape in the jam-packed mess that was her life.

_Hey, young blood! Doesn’t it feel like our time is running out? I’m gonna change you like a remix,_

“Then I’ll raaiise you like a phoeenix,” the girl known to her friends as Kai sang under her breath as she stood before the door of her locker. It looked the same as it had every morning since freshman year- its battered red face stared back at her, the paint peeling to reveal where it once had been blue. She twirled in the combination for the lock that hung from the latch, albeit a little clumsier than usual, and kicked in the bottom left-hand corner. Her wrist complained loudly as she grabbed onto the top of the door that popped out with her kick in order to pry it open. The stiff door let go with a jolt and a loud rattle, but three years had prepared her for the kickback – she barely noticed it anymore.

The inside of her locker was nothing special. The only interesting thing was that on the door she had a small mirror and a little basket which held her contact lenses and a small bottle of cleaning solution. A pair of magnets held a picture of her and her friend Catherine at the pool in Tufts Park from the previous summer. Kai’s dirty blonde hair was so wet it looked almost brown in that image, while Kathy’s own black hair was plastered against her dark cheek. It wasn’t the best photo of the both of them, but it was one that managed to make her smile every morning.

There was one other picture she kept in her locker. She smiled sadly at the sight, and despite her anger she touched it fondly. It was a couple years old now, having been taken at her freshman Homecoming dance. Kathy had taken the picture of Kai and David on her iPod, claiming the two of them were ‘just too cute.’ It had been hanging in Kai’s locker for years, and yet it was only slightly torn at the edges. It was a reminder of happier times, before things got so strained between the two of them.

“When he wasn’t a lying, cheating _scoundrel_ ,” she muttered bitterly. Pointedly turning away from picture and ignoring the turmoil of emotions swelling inside her at the sight of it, she swung her both her messenger and gym bags off her shoulder so they landed with a thud in front of her. She shoved the gym bag into the bottom of her locker before she undid the clasps to her schoolbag with more force than was necessary; taking a moment to decide what she would need for the day.

_F_ _day today_ , she reminded herself. That meant she had English and chemistry first, then her criminal law class, gym, and Spanish III. She gathered the things she needed quickly, as it was already nearing 7:20. When she had everything set, she stepped back from her locker. She was about to close it when that picture caught her eye again.

She growled under her breath before forcefully ripping the image from the door. The act sent the magnets holding it flying, though she couldn’t hear the _plink, plink_ of them hitting the floor over the sound of _Young Volcanoes_ in her ears. A hand on her shoulder shocked her into the real world, and she ripped an earbud out as she turned to face her ambusher.

“Whoa, where’s the fire, girl?”

Kai relaxed when she saw her attacker was none other than Catherine. Well, Kathy. Catherine was a name for ‘demure, sweet blonde girls,’ according to her friend, who was almost the exact opposite. At the moment though, the tall dark-haired girl was crouched down on the floor, picking up the magnets that had fallen out into the hall.

When she stood, Kai took the magnets sheepishly and stuck them back to the inside of her locker before finally closing the door. She still held the picture in her right hand, and Kathy’s face fell when she spotted it. There were no secrets between the two.

“You heard, then,” she said, pursing her lips. “Not surprising, given how Elizabeth was going on about it.”

Kai didn’t respond as she shoved the picture into her back pocket. She didn’t want to get rid of it – after all, he was almost four years of her life that she wouldn’t have traded for the world – but she was really in no mood to see his face. She put on a brave front, but of course Kathy could see right through it.

“It really doesn’t matter,” she replied sadly, swinging her locker door closed. “I kind of knew it would happen again.”

Her friend stared at her with dark eyes. “Doesn’t matter? Kai, the bastard _cheated_ on you. _Twice_! How can that not matter?”

Kai shrugged weakly. “He hasn’t said anything to me about it, so I’m really just waiting to see if he will or not. I just … I don’t want to deal with it right now, Kathy.” She shook her head and put her earbuds away as she began walking down the hall. Kathy jogged a couple steps to catch up with her.

“I can take care of the bitch for you,” Kathy offered cockily, a fierce look in her eyes. “And I can call him out on his bullshit, if you’d like. He won’t be cheating with anyone else, once I’m done with him.” Kai didn’t doubt her friend for a second, but she sighed.

“It’s not a big deal, really!” she protested. “I don’t want to be dragged into some stereotypical high school drama – I don’t have time for that! So please, _please_ ,” she begged her friend, “just let it go.”

Catherine, or rather, _K_ atherine Greene couldn’t be more Kai’s opposite: tall and willowy, with a sense of style that Kai only wished she could dare to have. That particular morning Kathy wore a sleeveless black faux leather jacket over a faded band t-shirt that had long ago been made a tank top. Grey skinny jeans and a pair of stylish combat boots completed the outfit. Her nearly black hair, tanned skin and dark eyes – courtesy of her Indian heritage – only added to her striking presence. Her father’s dog tag hung around her neck, as it had for the last four years.

Kai had known Katherine since they were both five, when Kathy had still spelled her name with a ‘C,’ wore pink, and allowed people to call her ‘Kitty.’ They had gone trick-or-treating in themed Halloween costumes together. They had grown up together, and were closer than sisters.

Kathy cast a look at her once more, but eventually sighed. “All right, I’ll trust you on this one. But if anyone tries to stir up trouble …”

“I can be damn well sure you’ll be there for me. I know,” Kai said, looking up at her friend. “Thanks.”

The taller girl shrugged, changing the subject. “So how did your competition go this weekend?”

Kai groaned loudly at the thought of said competition, holding up her left wrist. The black brace spoke for itself. “Terribly,” she said. “I just couldn’t focus. I nearly missed one of the bars and wrenched my wrist in the process. I didn’t even make top ten this time, let alone place. Honestly, I’m more upset about _that_ than the fact David cheated on me again.”

“Your left wrist this time? But that’s …”

The blonde nodded grimly. “Today should be fun. It’s been a while since I’ve injured my dominant hand,” she said, flexing her fingers of her left hand as much as she could. “Hey, Kath. What time is it?”

“Time? Uhh …” she said, checking the chunky black watch she kept on her wrist, “seven twenty-five. Why?”

“Crap!” Kai exclaimed. “I’m late for the Student Council meeting. We have a couple new students today, and the only thing I know about them is that they’re in Beacon House, and that I’m their student liaison. Uhg. Who transfers schools in the middle of _May_?”

“You really need to relax, Kaigirl. You’re putting too much stress on yourself again.”

“I _can’t_!” she protested. “I have Student Council, then I have to show these guys around, I have prom committee after school, I need to get my grade back up to at least a B in pre-calc before my mom sees it, I have to visit the gym today, I have to make up the work I miss … I have a qualifying meet coming up too, so this is a wicked bad time to be injured. Ehrg! I _really_ need to go! Sorry, Kath!”

With that, Kai took off toward the room where the meeting would be held. Katherine watched her go. More than anything, Kathy wanted to find David and give him a piece of her mind, but she restrained herself due to her friend’s request. Fiddling with her dad’s dog tag, she walked to the library where she would pass the time unintentionally terrorizing freshmen until the first bell rang.

* * *

Kai dashed through the halls as quickly as she dared, doing the hallway dance where one weaved through the masses of people that either weren’t looking or just refused to _move_. Her messenger bag bounced around on her shoulder and thwacked against her left thigh as she dodged the masses. It was another minute at least before she wrenched the door open to the English 12 classroom.

She skidded to a halt rather ungracefully, her worn sneakers lacking the traction they’d once provided. She smiled sheepishly at Jessica Remington, the class president, and took her seat as the vice-president of the class of 2014. When the gazes of her fellow officers turned back to Jessica, she relaxed and resettled her glasses further up on the bridge of her nose.

Jessica shot a look at her before turning back to the matters at hand. Kai was handed a paper with the morning’s agenda on it, and she sighed internally. It was much the same as it was every week – budget, fundraisers, the senior trip the next year, and prom. These topics had already been debated and ‘decided’ on so many times, Kai could nearly recite the arguments in her sleep.

However, there _was_ a new item on the list on this particular morning that caught her interest. _New Students_ , it read simply. These were the new students that would be her responsibility for the next day or so as they got settled in. It wasn’t that Kai was looking forward to showing them around – in fact, it was quite the opposite. What if she screwed up? What if they were an absolute pain in the ass? What if they were rude and full of themselves, or, on the other side of things, druggies who couldn’t care less about school? She was a girl who could tolerate only a small margin of people, after all.

Still, she supposed there was an upside to them being her responsibility. For one, if they were friend material, she could perhaps befriend them before they were caught in the clutches of any one of the cliques. It wouldn’t be the first time she had lost a potential friend to the girls who cared more about their clothes and makeup than their grades.

The debates of the Council became background noise as she tried to imagine what the new kids would be like. It was hard – after all, she didn’t even know their names! She had been told practically nothing, not even if they were guys or girls. After only a few minutes, her thoughts wandered to the gymnastics meet the past weekend. As she remembered each and every mistake she had made, including the one that led to the brace on her wrist, her thoughts then started to fall back into the ever-darkening pit in her mind that was David Rowell.

David Rowell, the boy who had asked her out in the middle of eighth grade. Who hadn’t known how little free time she had to herself when he asked her out. Who had stayed with her for almost four years now. David, who had now cheated on her twice in the past two months.

Her morose train of thought was interrupted with the opening of the classroom door. The discussion going on around her ceased as Mrs. Rae – the councilor for SHS’s Beacon House – entered the room. Behind her wide figure trailed two teens Kai had never seen before, and she automatically assumed these were the kids she was supposed to be showing around for the day.

Kai stood and met Mrs. Rae halfway across the room, ignoring the stares of her classmates. Clarissa Rae was a ginger-haired woman of about thirty, and had been Kai’s pillar of support since freshman year. Even when her own mother had told her she was trying to do too much, Mrs. Rae had been there to help facilitate her ambitions. It sort of made sense that Kai would be the one the councilor chose to help the new students.

“Whoa, those two are wicked hot,” she heard Morgan Timbre exclaim in badly hushed tones behind her, “Do you think either of them has a girlfriend?”

“Kai,” Mrs. Rae began as Kai cringed internally with secondhand embarrassment, “behind me, I have Eric and Alan Cirle.” Turning to the new students – guys, Kai noted in answer to her earlier questions – she continued, “Eric, Alan, this is Kai Dallas. She’ll show you around for today. If you have any questions about anything, just ask her.” She smiled brightly, looking back and forth between the three students. “If you need any additional help, you all know where my office is. Okay?”

The three people concerned each gave a nod of acknowledgement. “Thank you, Mrs. Rae,” Kai called to the woman’s retreating back, but got no reply. The councilor for Beacon House was a flighty woman, though she cared much about her students and fought fiercely to accommodate them – she had confronted administration more than once on Kai’s behalf. The door closed once more, and the room was left in silence.

Feeling the stares of the other girls on the Council, Kai’s cheeks burned just the tiniest bit. “Come on,” she told the new boys, “It would be best if we didn’t do this here.”

“Hahah, yeah,” the taller boy laughed nervously.

They left the room, and once they were standing in a fairly quiet portion of the hallway, she turned to them. “Sorry about that,” she apologized, “I figured we didn’t really want them listening – you uhm, probably heard Morgan ... Anyhow, I haven’t properly introduced myself. My name is actually Karmyn Dallas, though most people call me Kai, as you heard, and I’ll show you around for today, as you … also … heard …” she finished lamely as she held out a hand and mentally kicked herself. She never had been as agile with her words as she had been on the uneven bars, unfortunately.

She silently appraised the duo in those few moments, and she could feel them doing the same to her. She couldn’t help but note they were far from unattractive – as Morgan had so elegantly stated – and though she still felt she was cheating on David by appreciating that fact, she told herself she was being silly for even considering him. The two teens were a couple inches apart in height, and they both had hair a few shades darker than her own shade that was more brown than blond, but wasn’t _brown_ brown. The shorter one, who still looked to be a good five or six inches taller than her, wore his thick hair long and tied back in a low ponytail that failed to tame a single – shorter – unruly cowlick, while the taller one had his hair cropped closer to his ears. Both boys had unnaturally blue eyes that unnerved her slightly – was it just her or were they all the _exact_ same color?

Her spine crawled under their gazes as she continued to study the them. Twins? It seemed to be a reasonable explanation for the situation, but still something struck her as not quite right. The clasp of a hand in hers shook her from her thoughts, and she decided she was just being stupid and paranoid and searching for something that wasn’t there … again.

“Karmyn, huh? Cool,” The long-haired brother chuckled slightly as he shook her hand. “I’m Eric, and this is my little brother, Alan.”

“Pleased to meet you, Karmyn,” The other – Alan – chimed in. Kai smiled and shook his hand as well, trying to ignore the part of her brain that was telling her something was off about their eyes.

“Please,” she implored, “call me Kai.” After all, she was only deluding herself, right?

If she had to take a wild guess, she would say they seemed to be of some other nationality. There was something of an accent in the way they lingered over their vowels, at the very least. It wasn’t blaringly obvious, and the lilt in their speech was actually fairly pleasant to listen to. She hoped she’d get to hear more of it.

The first bell rang above them, announcing it was now 7:40 am and time for students to start heading to their classes before the second bell at 7:50. Kai explained this to her charges, and asked to see their schedules. The brothers fished them out of their bags and handed them over.

* * *

“So you see,” Kai told them as they walked through the halls of SHS, “we have a rotating schedule of seven days, labeled with a letter from A to G. Today is an F day, so you have your period one class first, then your period four class. There is a seventeen minute study after the second block, or the second class, of the day. Then you’ll have your fifth, sixth, and seventh period classes. Whether you have first, second, or third lunch depends on what class you have third block. Sometimes you may have first, other times third. Blocks are not always the same as periods.”

As she talked, she cast glances back and forth between the two boys. Both seemed to be paying attention to what she was saying, and for that she was grateful. “Any questions?”

“It seems complicated,” Alan commented.

“Come on, Alan. We’ve figured out much more complicated stuff,” Eric replied lazily, stretching his arms behind him as he surveyed the other students in the halls. “This is nothing.”

Kai smiled to herself, as it seemed that – perhaps – her fears were for naught. In fact, it seemed to be quite the opposite. Even after knowing them for only a couple minutes, she now wished that she would have the next week with them. Her initial suspicions had been cast away as she blamed them on her tendency to search for something unusual about something. Ever since she’d been young, she had always looked for adventure – something straight out of the books she read and the shows and movies she watched – _somewhere_. As she grew up and real life and responsibility took the adventure out of living, the tendency had diminished. It only ever resurfaced now when she met new people, when they were still a mystery and anything was possible.

And right now, these boys were a mystery to her.

She and Eric walked Alan to his class, which was first period modern world with Mrs. Lance. It worked out, as Eric shared his first period English 11 class with Kai. When they reached the door to the classroom, Kai asked the brothers to wait a moment. A few seconds later, she emerged with Katherine trailing behind her.

“Kathy, I’d like to introduce you to Eric and Alan Cirle,” she said, indicating which brother was which. “Eric, Alan, this is Katherine Greene. She’s practically my sister.”

Alan, to her surprise, wasn’t as cowed as people usually were upon meeting Kathy. Eric, on the other hand, wasn’t uneasy at all. In fact, Kai watched as his eye twitched and he clenched and unclenched his left hand a few times before composing himself again. She didn’t think much of it at the time.

“Pleased to meet you, Katherine,” Alan said with a smile, his voice steady. Kai bit back a smile – she could already tell she was going to like this kid. He wasn’t afraid of Kathy, for one thing.

“Come on, Al. Can I call you Al?” Her friend asked. She didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “All right, Al, ready for the most boring class ever? Thanks, Kai. I’ll take it from here.”

In her no-nonsense manner, Kathy grabbed Alan’s wrist and pulled him into the classroom. Kai actually grinned then. Despite how it may seem to outsiders, Alan was actually in very good hands. No one would bother him if people thought he was friends with the infamous Katherine Greene.

She turned back to Eric only to find him trying to choke back laughter. “Well then,” she said, stretching her arms out in front of her. “Come on, Eric. Your brother will be fine, and we have about three minutes to get to English before the bell.”

“Lead the way.”


	2. Monday, May 13 (2013)

In all honesty, Edward Elric had not been happy about the decision to go back to school.

He and his brother had avoided the hell that was high school and _actual_ teenagers for nearly twenty years – why they would go back now, with all the new risks, he didn’t know. Going to school was dangerous. Being around the same people for an extended period of time was dangerous. In the ninety-someodd years since they had landed on this side of the Gate, they had usually moved at least twice every decade to avoid suspicion. The number of forged government documents they had created and used was astronomical.

The boys didn’t go to school every year. Even their father had agreed it was too much to ask. The Elrics would go to a few years of school or attend a couple college classes if they so wished, then wouldn’t go to school again for years. It had been a while since they were last in high school, and the brothers had eventually agreed – with prodding from their father – that things had probably changed in the past few decades. If they wanted to keep up with the times – and therefore further avoid suspicion – it would be best to become reacquainted with the population.

So here he was, attending an English 11 class in the year 2013.

He had been placed in an empty seat toward the back of the class, for which he was grateful. Over the years he had found it was easier to doze off and not pay attention if he sat in the back. Edward was studious by his nature – he would spend hours in a library researching one thing or another back in Amestris – but there he had done the researching on things that mattered, and by his own volition. There was a limit on how many times one could be forced to sit through the symbolism of the green light in _The Great Gatsby_ without falling asleep. Doodling lazy transmutation circles on the paper he had been handed, Edward’s thoughts turned back toward the events of his return to hell, aka school.

Kai Dallas was not who he been expecting. When compared to the bubbly, cheerleader class representative he had imagined, Kai was quite the opposite. For one thing, she was _short_. He’d be surprised if she was any taller than five feet. Of course, Edward knew better than anyone not to underestimate small people. Her dirty blonde hair fell straight down to her shoulders, and the pair of glasses she wore had a tendency to slide down her nose. Dressed in a t-shirt that was slightly too large and jeans torn with wear, it was easy to tell she preferred function to fashion.

She was, in all reality, quite unremarkable. However, years of combat had trained Ed to recognize other things. The way she held her weight and the brace on her wrist told him she was probably stronger than she looked. She probably did some kind of sport, but even that wasn’t unusual – a lot of girls did sports.

The best part of that morning had been seeing Kai and her friend standing together. There was nearly a foot’s height difference between the two, and they looked about as different as night and day. Of course, there was the fact that Catherine was _taller_ than him … his height still bothered him a little bit, even after a growth spurt and ninety years. Luckily, she was about an inch taller than Al as well, so there was that blessing at least. His brother wouldn’t be able to tease him without making fun of himself as well.

Abandoning the useless transmutation circles, Edward lazily traced the letters etched into the desk’s surface with his finger. _D-R-E-W_. Honestly, some people were just stupid. Of all things to deface public property with, why would someone put their name? Were they asking to be caught?

“Mr. Cirle? Perhaps you know the answer?”

Edward’s, or rather, _Eric’s_ attention snapped up to the teacher in the front of the room. She stood there patiently with the look on her face that teachers got when they _knew_ the kid they’d called on hadn’t been paying attention. Ed sighed. He was here now – he would have to play the game. _Take that_ , he thought as he rattled off the correct answer to the surprised teacher. He’d played harder games before.

He leaned back in his seat only to find Kai looking back at him from her seat a row in front and to the right. When he looked at her, she immediately turned forward. Edward snorted softly, crossed his arms, and slouched back further in the uncomfortable plastic chair. This was going to be a long couple years, he thought as his attentions turned to the trees outside the window.

* * *

He had caught her watching. He caught her _watching._ Oh, God, what was he thinking? He probably thought she had some creepy crush on him now, which was – of course – in no way the truth. Kai’s cheeks burned as she berated herself for her foolish actions. She had only been curious … wasn’t it reasonable, given the circumstances?

She knew practically nothing about Eric. Kai knew she shouldn’t be so impatient – after all, she had only known him for a maybe an hour. However, because she knew nothing about him, she could pretend he came from MI-6 and was going undercover as a student in order to catch another notorious spy, and …

… and maybe she was just trying to ignore the pitying looks Elizabeth Carson and her friends kept shooting in her direction.

That could be it.

She tore her concentration away from Eric and directed it towards the lined paper resting before her, as blank as it had been when it was passed out. She sighed, clumsily picking her pencil up with her right hand. She shifted her grip on it several times before she finally grabbed it in a way she felt would give her at least some modicum of control. Even then, it still felt wrong. She hated writing righty. The speed at which she formed her sentences – or rather, lack thereof – frustrated her greatly.

The bell rang at 8:59. Looking at what she had written, Kai shrugged. It would be good enough. Her English grade was high enough that it could suffer a few points – it was far more important that she handed the paper in, as she wouldn’t have the time to finish it that afternoon. Following the general flow of students into the hallway, she paused at the door to wait for Eric as he exchanged some words with Mrs. Fritz.

“They give more homework than I remember,” the teen grumbled as he came up next to her.

This threw her for a loop. “Well, it’s a new school,” she finally responded, unsure of what he meant by ‘than I remember.’ “And besides, you’re new. She’s probably trying to get you caught up.”

Eric looked down at her, an inscrutable expression on his face. “Yeah,” he said. “That must be it.”

Kai shook off the unsettled feeling she was getting. Seriously, she didn’t understand her dumb fascination with the new kid. He was just going to turn out like everyone else.

“Come on,” she said, “we’ve got chemistry next.”

Kai hated chemistry. It was a simple fact, but a fact that neither of her parents had ever really accepted. That wasn’t to say that she wasn’t good at it – no, not at all. She held an A-minus, a near-impossible feat in an AP Chemistry class. Both her mother and father were chemists, and so she had grown up with residual, subconscious knowledge of the science that her parents were both so fond of.

As she drew closer to the time in which she should be thinking about college, however, she was beginning to feel the expectations that her parents had placed upon her. It was obvious they wanted her to go into the sciences, like they had. She had taken AP Chem as an elective this year in order to appease them, but with all the pressure and the importance her parents placed on the sciences, it was almost natural that Kai grew to resent them. The sciences, that is, not her parents.

She just wasn’t interested in the sciences, she knew that much. In all actuality, though, she had no clue _what_ she wanted to do. She sort of liked the idea of going into law, but she still wasn’t sure about it. Unfortunately, law school would be expensive, and her parents had already shelled out a ton of money for her gymnastics. She would need a scholarship for whatever college it was that she would eventually attend. She was hoping to make Top Ten her senior year and get an academic scholarship, as well as perhaps a scholarship for gymnastics …

“Uh… Kai?”

There was so much to do, and she was quickly running out of time. She was almost done with her junior year, and things were getting more hectic than ever. She needed to make a final decision as far as what she wanted to do as far as higher education. She had a couple competitions coming up, along with a championship out in California that summer. She had volunteer work to do, and her grades were falling in pre-calculus – she had to get those back up because if she didn’t her mother wouldn’t let her do gymnastics until she did, and it would also significantly hurt her chances of Top Ten. There was also student council and prom committee – oh, God was that next weekend?

Her heartbeat raced and her breathing shallowed as she tried not to let her thoughts run away with her. She stopped walking to brace a hand against the hallway wall. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to breathe deeply and evenly. She _would_ get through this. She would. She had another year and a half, including the summer. There was no use in panicking, especially not in the middle of the hall.

“Kai?”

Opening her eyes again, Kai turned to see the slightly freaked boy behind her. Eric stood there poised to run for help, his eyes slightly wide and a concerned expression on his face. She smiled weakly – so he wasn’t as devil-may-care as he seemed to be. She removed her hand from the wall to stand on her own two feet again, taking one last deep breath and adjusting her schoolbag on her shoulder.

“I’m fine,” she reassured him with a calm she didn’t feel. “Don’t worry about it.” When the dubious look remained on his face, she sighed. “Come on, the chemistry classroom is right up here.”

She continued to steady her breathing as they walked down the corridor. When they turned the corner, they were met with the sight of Katherine and Alan standing outside the doors to the science lab. As they got closer, Kai began to make out their conversation.

“Seriously, I’m fine! You don’t need to stand here with me as if I were a child,” Alan was complaining. Katherine stood beside him, slouched on one hip and examining her bright red nails as if they were the most interesting thing in the world. Her head was turned away from him, so Alan couldn’t see the smile playing at her lips. Kai, however, could.

“I told Kai I would take care of you,” she stated loftily, “and I keep my word.”

When Alan heaved a sigh of exasperation, Kai decided it was time to intervene. She loved Kathy dearly, but her tendency to purposefully push people’s buttons – while most of the time fun to watch – was not helping the situation. If the Cirles complained, it was Kai that would end up in trouble, and that was the last thing she needed.

“Kathy, leave him alone,” she ordered lightheartedly as she approached. Aside, to Alan, she rolled her eyes and added a “seriously!” in a mock-exasperated tone.

“Hey! I saw that!” Katherine exclaimed indignantly.

“I know,” Kai replied coolly, turning back to look up at her friend. “Now scoot. You’re going to be late for class.”

“It’s only gym,” the taller girl protested halfheartedly, but began walking all the same. Over her shoulder, she sang out, “Have fun in chem!”

Kai snorted. Kathy knew just how much she despised the class, and never failed to tease her about it. Turning to the new kids, she smiled.

“After you,” she said, gesturing for the brothers to enter the classroom.

* * *

Chemistry that day was boring, but that was to be expected. Even in the AP class, most of the class was spent going over simple concepts and ideas for the people who just didn’t understand them. For people like Kai, who had understood them the first time they were explained, the extra rehashing was just tedious. At least the labs they did were interesting enough, if only because it got them out of the classroom and into the lab.

It was only second period, too, so she didn’t even have homework to do. Mrs. Fritz had assigned the last few chapters of _The Great Gatsby_ , but Kai had finished the book the day before in a rare spot of free time. Deprived of other means of distraction, her gaze wandered the room.

Dr. Mason was a short blonde man in about his late forties. He was one of those teachers that felt that everyone needed to progress at the same pace, and everyone needed to understand every concept before he moved on. He was actually a really nice guy; Kai just didn’t agree with his teaching methods. His back was currently turned on the room as he scrawled a diagram of the concept he was currently trying to teach. Thomas Mason was actually an old colleague of her mother’s, so Kai had known the man for what seemed like forever.

That didn’t change how bored she was.

Her attention drifted toward the posters that were hung around the room. Atoms grinned down at her with punny slogans splashed beneath them. Several inspiring chemistry-related quotes were written upon the walls. Across the back of the room was Dr. Mason’s collection of science puns, comics, and jokes. Just a little further over, next to the door that was the entrance to the lab, was the poster with a graph of both a man and the Earth, and the proportion of elements that made up each.

_Oxygen- 65%  
_ _Carbon- 18%_  
_Hydrogen- 10%  
_ _Nitrogen- 3%_

The poster brought back memories from her last year of middle school, back when she had the time to memorize useless facts from books and TV shows. She had forgotten most of those by now, replaced by information such as the date Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated (June 28, 1914) and how to solve x2 \+ 7x + 12 (x = -3, -4). She tried to recall some of them now and then, especially the one from Fullmetal Alchemist whenever the composition of the human body came up, but she could only ever remember the first part.

_Water- 35 litres_

In her languid scan of the room, she realized that she wasn’t the only one not paying attention. At the table in front of her, she watched Alan point out the poster she had just been contemplating to his brother. Eric looked at it, said something to his brother, and then turned back forward while shaking his head slightly. Oh, how Kai wished she could’ve heard what he had said!

Actually, the two brothers talked throughout the entire class, just narrowly escaping reprimand from the teacher on multiple occasions. At first Kai thought they were ignoring the worksheet that had been handed out, but later realized they had both completed it in one of the times she had looked away in a failing attempt to not be a complete stalker.

The bell rang not a second too soon. At the tone, everyone immediately stood and moved around, but nobody headed toward the door. Eric and Alan turned and looked at Kai questioningly.

“I told you about the study this morning, right?” she asked, pretty sure she had. “There’s a seventeen minute study before third period each day. We stay in the second period classroom, but we don’t have assigned seats or anything.”

“Why seventeen minutes? That seems kinda weird,” Eric commented, spinning his chair around to face where she still sat. Kai shrugged, secretly thrilled when Alan followed his brother’s lead. Perhaps she could actually make friends with these people?

“I don’t know,” she said. “All I know is that we have a study between 10:09 and 10:26 every morning, and it is very much appreciated.”

It wasn’t rare for Kai to be doing another class’ classwork during this time, or homework she hadn’t gotten to, or, on some Mondays, taking a desperate nap after getting back late from a competition the day before. Other times, she’d try to get stuff done for student council or prom committee. Sometimes – rarely – she’d read or doodle.

Today would be different, however.

She deftly – or as deftly as one can with a braced wrist – gathered up her binder and papers and slid them back into her bag. When she finished, she stretched both her arms across the tabletop and leaned toward the two boys sitting across the way.

An awkward silence hung about the three of them, as no one knew where to start. Kai had a bunch of questions- where did you live before this? How are you liking the school? Tell me your entire life story. Okay, maybe not the last one. That was a bit too invasive, and of course they would just be regular people. That’s all people ever were – regular.

“What happened to your wrist?” Alan finally asked.

Kai looked at him. His eyes, like his brother’s, were an unnatural shade of blue. She wasn’t going to lie – it was a little weird and unnerving. He was taller than his brother too … odd. She’d thought maybe they were identical twins, but weren’t identical twins usually the same height? But fraternal twins didn’t usually look so darned freaking alike. Of course, she wasn’t an expert on twins, so …

“Oh, this,” she said after a moment’s pause. “I do gymnastics. I had a competition this weekend and grabbed the bar wrong … it should be better in a couple days.”

“Ah. Gymnastics,” Eric said, nodding to himself. “That makes sense.”

Kai looked at him oddly. She, of course, had not been privy to his earlier thoughts in the English classroom.

“That’s cool!” Alan said with a wide grin on his face, which immediately morphed to a mildly panicked expression. “I mean, it’s not cool that you hurt your wrist, but-”

She couldn’t help it. She laughed. “It’s fine. I understand what you’re saying.”

“Are you any good?” Kai turned to Eric, who had spoken.

“Well, I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t really think so, but I am at level nine, and my coach tells me I am, so … maybe? I do hit my Tkatchevs without killing myself most of the time, which I guess is a good thing …”

Eric chuckled. Kai didn’t really understand what was so funny, but she couldn’t help but smile. When she looked over, she saw that Alan was watching the two of them, amused. A hand on her shoulder caused her to jump, and she whirled around to see who was standing behind her.

“Hey, Kai, were you planning on introducing us at some point?”

Kai looked up at the figure standing by her shoulder. When she saw who it was, her smile fell. She wouldn’t call Heather Burns a friend of hers, but they went to the same gymnastics gym … which apparently meant they were besties and Heather should be included in all that Kai did.

“Oh, uhm … yeah. Heather, this is Eric and Alan,” she said, motioning to each one as she said their name, “Eric, Alan, this is Heather.”

They both said hello, and Heather looked at them. “Are you twins?” she asked.

Oh, good. As much as she wished Heather would leave her alone, that was one less question Kai would have to ask. To her shock, both brothers shook their head.

“Al’s a year younger than me,” Eric stated quite proudly, motioning at his brother with a thumb. That surprised her even further – Kai would have guessed it the other way around. “He’s sixteen,” he continued, “I’m seventeen. We started school at the same time, though, so we’re in the same grade.”

Alan started school early? That was impressive … she didn’t question it much. After all, all schools did things a little differently. The likelihood of some school somewhere letting him start a year early was probably quite high. He seemed to be well adjusted, too.

“That’s awesome!” Heather squealed. She was the type to get overexcited about everything, and her high-pitched voice naturally lent itself to squealing.

“Oh! Let me see your schedules again,” Kai said suddenly, turning back to the Cirles. She hoped the other girl would take the hint. “I think this is where we part ways for now.”

“I’ll see you later, Kai?” Heather asked, and Kai nodded dismissively before turning her attention fully onto the brothers.

Indeed, this was where they would split. She herself should be heading to her Criminal Law class, while Alan had physics and Eric would be going to engineering. “The engineering and physics classrooms are in the same wing,” she told them, “so you can walk together most of the way. Oh, and Eric, Kathy has engineering period five as well, so you’ll be in the same class.”

Eric groaned slightly and muttered something like ‘freaking giant,’ but she couldn’t be sure. He could’ve said ‘reeking lion’ for all she was certain. The first seemed more plausible, but …

“Really, she’s a fantastic person,” Kai protested. “She just has a very strong personality. She’s only testing the both of you …”

But before she could say anything else, the bell rang and the class filed out. Once she was outside, Kai paused to make sure the brothers were going the right way before heading in the direction of her locker instead of toward her criminal law classroom. It was time to blow this popsicle stand, at least for the next two hours.


	3. Monday, May 13 (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's song was _It's Time_ by Imagine Dragons!

Kai ducked nimbly through the hall, avoiding the bodies that were moving in the opposite direction. The bell rang overhead, but she paid it no heed. She continued walking as classroom doors closed around her It didn’t take long to get to her locker, especially with the halls devoid of all teenagers but the ones that were skipping class. Standing before the shabby blue-and-red door, she entered her combination – 7-47-13 – and kicked it again in order to pry it open once more.

The picture of her and Kathy greeted her, along with the empty magnets that reminded her of the picture still in her back pocket. Never mind about that now, Kai told herself moodily as she hung her schoolbag over one of the hooks inside the metal box. She then pulled the gym bag out and slung it over her shoulder in its place. She checked herself in the mirror quickly and grimaced at the sight of the two red spots on her chin and the one on her forehead. She sighed, and then grabbed her contacts and cleaning solution from the basket inside the door. She closed the locker with her knee, fumbling single-handedly with the lock until it clicked shut. Shaking wayward strands of hair from her face, she walked down to the front lobby to sign out.

The office ladies greeted her with smiles and several greetings. She smiled back but didn’t reply as she approached the sign-out sheet and clumsily wrote ‘ _Karmyn Dallas – Junior – 10:35 am – Gymnastics_ ’ in the correct columns. She didn’t usually sign out until 11:00ish, but on days where she had first lunch and wouldn’t actually be going to her third period class until 11:04, she took advantage of the extra time and left early to drive the fourteen minutes to the Gymnastics Academy of Boston. It gave her a little extra free time in the middle of the school day, as she didn’t actually need to be at the gym until 11:20.

Up until this year, she hadn’t been allowed to leave before the allotted time of eleven o’clock. Junior privileges meant she could sign out during her lunch period, which she often took advantage of.

She smiled at the office ladies once more before she left the building. As she fished for the set of keys she kept in her gym bag, she didn’t see the bench that sat right outside the main doors. There was no physical damage done as she walked straight into it, but a quick check for people confirmed the fact it _had_ been a slightly embarrassing mistake. Grabbing her keys out of the bag, she backed away from the bench and walked the rest of the way to the school’s parking lot.

Her mildly battered red pickup truck was slightly Twilight-esque, but its saving grace was the fact it had been polished until it shone. As always, the black flamel window sticker that clung to the corner of her back windshield made her smile. It was the same one that had hung on her bedroom window in eighth grade, but after receiving the truck from her father for her sixteenth birthday, she had relocated it. The color of the truck had been the inspiring factor of the relocation, more for sentimental reasons than any fangirl ones. It had been years now since she had really been into anime and manga.

Tossing her gym bag into the bed, she walked up to the driver’s side and unlocked the doors before she climbed in. When she started the ignition, her stereo picked up from where it had been when she’d turned it off earlier that morning – halfway through Imagine Dragons’ _Tiptoe_.

She’d had Imagine Dragons in for a while now, she thought as she pulled out of the parking lot. It was probably about time to switch it out. Perhaps Panic! at the Disco would be next … or maybe My Chemical Romance. She’d make a decision later, staring at the pile of albums she kept in her room at home. She was one of those people who preferred having a solid copy of the album rather than just getting her music off iTunes. For one thing, the truck was too old to have a slot for an iPod connector cable.

“I get a little bit bigger, but then – I’ll admit – I’m just the same as I wa-as,” she sang along as she drove down School Street, “Now don’t you understaaaand that I’m never changing who I am?”

Despite her general willingness to follow rules, Kai had a habit of driving faster than the posted speed limit. It was in this drive every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that she found her solace. Fifteen minutes where it was only her, her music, and the roads of the Boston/Cambridge suburbs. Fifteen minutes where she didn’t have to worry about math or chemistry or school at all.

She was nearly at the Gymnastics Academy when she pulled over on Concord Avenue. The time was about 10:50, and she didn’t need to be at the gym until 11:20 if she wanted to give herself enough time to change into her leotard and get her contacts in for 11:30 open gym. She had it down to a science – on days where she skipped out before first lunch, she had enough time to stop by Black’s Nook.

Black’s Nook was a pond she had discovered the year before during a day out with Kathy. There were several hiking trails in the area, and on days where she had enough time, she brought a sandwich and ate looking over the water. Parking her truck with practiced ease, she grabbed her food out of the bag on the passenger seat where she had left it that morning. As soon as her truck was locked, she took off down the trail.

Kai often sprinted down the trail as fast as she could, figuring it had two purposes: one, it got her to her favorite eating spot faster, therefore she would have more time to relax; and two, it sort of warmed her up for the exercise she would be doing later. Okay … it was more the former than the latter. She usually ate where the trail came up right next to the water, on a rock that seemed perfect for doing just that. She didn’t really worry about other people finding her – there weren’t that many people hiking at eleven o’clock on a weekday, and even if there were, she was out of school with permission.

She ate her chicken salad sandwich quickly, rushing so that she could spend the rest of the fifteen minutes she had just pretending she was the only person left on Earth. It was a self-directed therapy that had helped immensely since she had begun. She had Googled panic attacks and anxiety disorders, and while she didn’t think she truly suffered from either – her occasional symptoms weren’t nearly as bad as what those websites described, and she didn’t want to go claiming she had either when there were people who really suffered them badly – she definitely had enough stress in her life to warrant some stolen relaxation time.

Balling the leftover plastic wrap in her fist, she held it tight as she sat back on the rock and enjoyed the cool May morning breeze. Out on the pond a few ducks paddled around as other birds flew overhead. Kai breathed deeply, wishing – as she always did – that she could skip gymnastics practice that morning. She had a sprained wrist … she could easily pass it off as worse than it actually was …

But she knew, as she always knew, that she would never actually do it. There was still enough she could do without hurting her wrist. It wasn’t broken, so it wouldn’t hinder her too much. She could do flips that didn’t require her hands, and she could go over the bits of her floor routine that weren’t too strenuous.

And she loved gymnastics. She loved the exhilaration she felt as the room flashed by her eyes she when flipped and flew. The adrenaline rush she got when she knew she had to land exactly _this_ way or else she’d end up with serious injury was absolutely thrilling. She’d started the sport when she was seven after watching the gymnasts in the 2004 Olympics with her mother. Almost ten years later, and she was two levels beneath that Olympic level. Of course, there was a _huge_ difference in skill between a level nine and an Elite level, despite the deceptive two-level gap.

She liked to pretend, though.

Of course, the ‘pretending’ had gotten her in trouble before. From the age of six until the age of eleven, Kim Possible had been her idol. Even now, at the age of sixteen-almost-seventeen, her text- and ringtones were the Kimmunicator beep. It would have been unnatural if she _hadn’t_ tried to copy the teen superhero when she was nine. Her only reward for that stunt had been a broken ankle and a firm reminder from her mother that the hairdryer she had broken was neither a grappling gun nor a plaything.

Yet, she hadn’t learned her lesson from that incident. When she was thirteen, she’d begun reading that manga – _Fullmetal Alchemist_ – and, like any fangirl, she had developed a raging crush on the protagonist. It was _so_ impressive what he could do, and just how ‘ninja’ he was, and couldn’t she do something like that as well? Reminder: she was thirteen at the time. The attempt had earned her several severe bruises on her back and forearms – not to mention a slightly sprained knee – but thankfully it had been early spring so she could get away with wearing long sleeves and pants until her bruises had faded enough to escape notice from the Momster. As for her knee, she’d said she’d hurt it in her actual gymnastics class, and had somehow gotten away with the lie.

But she wasn’t thinking about any of this as she sat at Black’s Nook. No, her thoughts were occupied with the same topic that had been circling around all day. Eric and Alan Cirle. She didn’t even know why she couldn’t stop thinking about them. She was only thinking the same things about them over and over again. She didn’t even know them!

She wanted to, though.

Like _that_ would ever happen, she reminded herself bitterly. For a girl who was in so many leadership positions, she hated talking with people. Adults she was fine with … other teenagers sucked. There was a reason she didn’t have a large group of really close friends … well, it was one of the reasons. There was also a reason why she hadn’t been able to make enough time for her own boyfriend …

Upon that thought, she extracted the picture from her back pocket. It had gotten a little crumpled from her sitting on it, and so she smoothed it out over her thigh. From the photo, a boy who was unmistakably David smiled mischievously out from under a dusting of freckles as his brown eyes practically twinkled. His short dark hair was spiked up in the front with gel, a look on him that had been rare at the time but had grown more common over the years. A younger Kai looked up from the photo as well; her hair pinned back in a clip. The top of her head only barely reached his shoulder, a fact that was still true two and a half years later. A small smile crept onto Kai’s face as she remembered she had worn two inch heels that night in an attempt to make it less awkward. Her feet had killed her for it.

He had been _so_ cute. And _so_ much fun. That was, of course, before he had become ‘cool’ and a little bit distanced. That was before the physical aspect of their relationship. That was before she got the feeling _he_ believed _she_ didn’t actually love him because she was always busy with this, that, or the other thing and never had enough time to really spend with him. That wasn’t true – sure, she had sometimes turned him down even on days she’d had free due to the fact that she really, _really_ wanted a day to herself for once – but she’d always loved him.

And it _hurt_. It hurt like _fuck_ when she had first heard of him cheating in April with Ashley Anderson. But, like the foolish girl she was, she had given him another chance. She loved him, after all. Even now, after hearing Elizabeth Carson in English on Friday, she still loved him.

No, she told herself as she sat there staring at the picture, she didn’t love _him_. She loved _who he used to be_. They were no longer the same person. The old David would never have been caught dead with either cigarettes or alcohol, and Kai knew for a fact he had tried both of them at least once since the beginning of their sophomore year. She had put an end to the cigarettes quickly by saying she wouldn’t date a smoker, thank God. But … she never saw him anymore. How would she know if he had gone back on his promise or not?

The old David loved _her_ , and would never cheat on her … and practically everyone knew how that had worked out.

Even with her forced epiphany, it still hurt. Kai had the feeling that it would continue to hurt for a long, long time. With the new distinction however, she felt as if she could move on. She would tell him that it was over, and she would walk away a stronger person. She refused to be the girl that fell to pieces after a breakup. He wasn’t her entire world. Not anymore.

She still had her Ziplock bag and plastic wrap from her sandwich in one hand. In a moment of inspiration, she slid the picture into the plastic bag and sealed it tight. She stood, and turned to face the rock she had been sitting on. Slowly, she circled the stone until she found a gap at the base. Taking a breath, she knelt and slid the picture underneath until one couldn’t even see the plastic bag from the outside. She didn’t need it – she had the photo saved on her computer. It’s symbolic, she told herself as she stood.

Jogging back to her truck, her mind remained on the picture left underneath her rock. Maybe some adventurous soul would find it someday. Perhaps the bag would open and it would be destroyed by the elements. Or it could be eaten by some wild animal. In any case, it wasn’t her problem anymore.

Aw, shit. She was running late.

* * *

Gymnastics went better than Kai thought it would. It usually did, once she got started. She’d practiced her floor routine for the entire hour and a half, concentrating on getting the dance parts down pat. She worked to what she believed to be Romanian folk music. She didn’t actually know – the website her instructor had gotten it from wasn’t all that clear with the naming of its tracks.

She couldn’t wait until she could take the brace off in a few days. The uneven bars were her favorite, and that was the one event she absolutely could not do with an injured wrist. Vault was hard too, but that was Kai’s least favorite event. It was always over too quickly.

Speaking of ‘always over too quickly,’ that was how Kai felt when it was time to return to school after practice days. She changed back into her street clothes reluctantly, repacking her leotard in her gym bag. She decided against taking her contacts out– it wouldn’t hurt to go back to school with them in. With her wrist in the brace, it would take longer to get them out and she just didn’t have that time. She had to be back at the school before seventh period began at 1:24, and it took fifteen minutes to get there. Her hair remained up in its high ponytail for the same reason.

The drive back to the school was never as relaxing as the drive from it. She gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, ignoring the temptation to stop at Black’s Nook and spend the rest of the day there. Imagine Dragons continued to play from the stereo, and Kai turned it up.

“I’m breaking in, shaping up, and checking out on the prison bus. This is it – the apocalypse!”

The song was one of her favorites, and she lost herself in the music as she drove the rest of the way back to the school. She parked deftly in the same space she’d left, turned the engine off, and jumped out almost immediately. She was running out of time, and she still had to swing by her locker before her Spanish class. She locked her truck, grabbed her gym bag from the back, slung it over her shoulder, and ran towards the school as best she could.

She was out of breath by the time she reached the front office, and extremely glad her hair was still tied up. She didn’t even look up at the ladies as she scribbled her ‘time in’ on the sheet in an illegible scrawl. Dropping the pen as if it had burned her, she booked it out of the office and dashed down the hall.

Kai fumbled her lock, having to take a second attempt in order to unlock the thing. When the door was finally open, she quickly swapped her two bags. Luckily, her schoolbag wasn’t as bulky as her gym bag was. A quick check in the mirror told her that her appearance was as hopeless as usual, and she gave up after smoothing some of her flyaway hairs back.

“You’d better lower. Your standards. ‘Cause it’s never … gettin’ any better than this,” she muttered under her breath, quoting the Fall Out Boy song before slamming her locker door shut.

The bell rang just as she stepped into her Spanish class, but her foot was over the line so she was technically on time. Señor Martinez cast a disapproving look at her, and she shrugged helplessly.

“I was in the room,” she said.

“Sólo siéntate, Dallas,” he sighed before turning to begin class. Unfortunately, Kai had Spanish III last period on five out of the seven rotation days, so Señor Martinez was the one who usually had to deal with her coming back from practice late. She was grateful for the fact he had never actually given her a tardy, even when she didn’t make it before the bell.

Kai entered the room fully and collapsed behind her desk, swinging her bag off her shoulder so that it landed on the surface of the desk before skidding off and thudding oh-so-gracefully on the floor. She caught it just before it hit, so it didn’t make as loud a noise as it probably should have. She grabbed her books from the bag, placed them on her desk, and got ready to conjugate irregular verbs.

Her Spanish class was one of those classes that were extremely unruly. The mix of students in the room just lent itself to noise. Lots and lots of noise. Students – especially Rebecca Conley – enjoyed trying to get Sr. Martinez off-topic or distract him long enough so that they wouldn’t have to do work. Sr. Martinez continued to threaten assigned seats, but he’d been threatening assigned seats for the entire semester and hadn’t ever carried through with it. It was safe to say that it was an empty threat by this point. Not that Kai really cared- she was one of the few people that actually sat and did their work quietly.

The hour-long class passed and finally, the final bell rang. Her classmates rushed out, but Kai lagged in putting her stuff away. She still had to go talk with Ms. Powers and Mr. Carlson, whose classes she had missed while she was at practice. She knew she would end up with a bunch of work for Criminal Law to do that night, but Mr. Carlson usually excused her for gym if she got the paper signed by her coach. When she missed his class, it was to go do much more strenuous exercise. She just had to check in with him to turn in the paper and where was her goddamn pencil?

A tap on her shoulder brought her whirling around to come face-to-face with Alan Cirle. Or rather, face-to-chest, considering he was at least 5’9” and she was only 4’11”. He held her pencil in his hand, and he shifted awkwardly.

“You, uhm, dropped this.”

Kai looked up at him and smiled, attempting to mask her uneasiness. “Thanks,” she replied, taking the writing implement from his hand. So he was in Spanish III as well? He had been so quiet she hadn’t even noticed him. There was an awkward silence as she finished packing her stuff away. There was literally no one left in the room. Even Sr. Martinez had left upon the bell – probably to go to some meeting.

Why was he still standing there? He had already given her the pencil … It was making her irrationally nervous, and she searched desperately for some topic to fill the silence with.

“Ahh … how was your first day?” She ended up asking even as she scolded herself for it. Really? Out of all the clichéd topics one could pick, she had to use _that_ one? Not to mention she hadn’t even looked at him as she asked. She couldn’t help it. She was terrible around attractive people.

And Alan, much like his brother, definitely fit in that category.

He chuckled a little before answering. “It went really well. The people here seem nice.”

Her former uneasiness assuaged, Kai turned and smiled at him again. Her bag was now completely packed and slung over her shoulder. “That’s good,” she said. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help. It should have been someone else, considering I’m not even _here_ all day, but Mrs. Rae really wanted me to do it …”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alan replied as she trailed off. “If Eric and I couldn’t find our way around a high school after this long …”

“That’s the second time,” she commented to herself as they made their way down the hall.

“Second time for what?”

The second time I’ve heard one of you Cirles say something that sounded a little strange, she wanted to say. The second time I’ve had to think twice about what you were actually saying. The second time I’ve had to swear that I’m just going crazy. Yeah, she thought, that would go over well.

“Nothing,” she said instead. “It’s nothing.”

And it really was.

They walked in silence for another minute or two. Kai was still wondering why he was still walking with her. She hadn’t really even made friends with him that day. Perhaps he was just a friendly person? But then, why did he choose to walk with her and not some other kid from their class?

“Alan, come on!” That was Eric’s voice, Kai realized as her thoughts were drawn away from the circles they’d been spinning. Apparently he had gotten bored waiting for his brother and came to find him. Well, he had succeeded… only to find her as well. He looked between her and Alan, and Kai could feel his gaze on her even from down the hall.

“Whoops! I gotta go,” Alan said hastily, jogging a couple steps toward his brother. “See you tomorrow, Kai!”

“Yeah, tomorrow,” Kai murmured, raising her hand in a half-hearted wave as he joined Eric. She stood dumbly for a moment, watching the two. They seemed to have a short, intense conversation – an argument? – before Eric acknowledged her as well and they both turned the corner.

She couldn’t quite identify the feeling in her stomach – it was something like a mixture of dread, nervousness, and elation. She didn’t know why she felt that way, but she couldn’t help but think – what had she gotten herself into?


	4. Monday, May 13 (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoken Amestrian will be in 'single quotes' while spoken English will be in "double quotes" throughout the fic. I didn't want to italicize Amestrian when, later on in the fic, it becomes the dominant spoken language.
> 
> Chapter unedited from when it was originally posted on fanfiction.net on 08.09.2014

‘Brother, it’s not going to _be_ like last time,’ Alphonse protested as he and Edward drove home from school. As there was no one else with them, he lapsed back into the now-foreign nuances of Amestrian. ‘We can’t let her influence everything else we do – we have to move on.’

Edward sighed. He kept his eyes on the road and his hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel. ‘I know, Al,’ he replied, ‘I know, but I just can’t forget about what happened the last time we made friends with a high school girl. You know how badly that ended.’

The last time they had been in high school was back around 1991 or so, when they lived in rural North Japan. Before Hokkaido, the only thing the Elrics had to worry about with their identity was the fact they didn’t age. It had been a problem easily solved by the forging of government documents, hair dye, contacts, and moving every couple years. It was bothersome, but once they were in a new location they usually didn’t have to worry for a few years at least.

It was in 1991 that they had practically signed their own death warrant, though they hadn’t known it at the time.

One could probably have guessed by now that the last friend they had made was a girl by the name of Arakawa Hiromi – penname: Arakawa Hiromu. The three had become best friends, and by the end of their last year of high school, the Elrics had trusted her enough to reveal their true identities – to tell her their story. They wanted at least _one_ person to know … and who better to tell than a farm girl from rural Japan? Who could she tell that would believe her? She loved stories, they knew, so why not?

They didn’t expect that they would see their own faces – albeit stylized – in Japanese magazines and on websites a little over ten years later. The horror they had experienced as they watched their own lives unfold in front of them for a second time was practically unimaginable. They hadn’t been able to bring themselves to hate their old friend – after all, she was doing well for herself, and who doesn’t want their friends doing well? But since then they’d needed to take extra precautions against recognition and had all but fallen off the map.

Until now.

And now they were already running into the problem they’d had before.

‘She seems really nice,’ Al stated, albeit a little weakly. He didn’t look at his brother as he spoke, instead staring out the window as Edward drove. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that they were still deprived of experiencing a normal teenage life, with normal friends.

Ed knew how his brother was feeling. He felt it too. However, Al hadn’t seen Kai get into her truck from the window of the Engineering room. When they walked out into the parking lot after school, Ed’s eyes had been drawn to the battered red pickup due to natural curiosity. There, on the back window, he had seen the flamel. His symbol. Well, not actually _his_ symbol, but there was no doubt in his mind.

If they allowed her to get closer to them, she _would_ recognize them in time. One person knowing the truth – the author of the so-called ‘story’ – could be accepted. But another witness to confirm the story was real? It was a risk they could not take.

‘She – _they –_ would find out,’ Edward finally said, attempting to turn the conversation away from the short blonde they had met. ‘We can’t risk it, especially not now.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Alphonse agreed, still rather mum, ‘but we’re never …’

‘Never?’ Ed prompted as Al trailed off, but he didn’t have to. He knew what his brother was going to say. _We’re never getting home. We’re never going to be normal. We’re just … never._

It was only a three minute drive home; therefore the resounding silence only lasted a few moments before they pulled into the driveway of their house. Ed parked the car easily, and they both entered the house with little fanfare.

‘Hey, old man. We’re back,’ Ed told their father, tossing the keys carelessly onto the kitchen counter.

Hiromi had taken some creative liberties when she published their story. After fighting Father, Edward hadn’t given up his alchemy to get his brother back. Instead, they had both ended up on this side of the Gate as payment. Van Hohenheim hadn’t died, either – he had willingly followed his boys through, having known what was on the other side.

The Elrics knew she had taken those liberties in an attempt to preserve their anonymity in this world as much as possible. They still communicated sometimes, mostly through occasional emails. She had apologized years ago, and the Elrics had grudgingly accepted it.

With all the truth behind her success, there was a reason she kept her personal life as private as she did.

‘How was school?’ Van Hohenheim asked, looking up from the papers that were spread out on the table in front of him. He had never explained how he had known where his sons had gone, and Ed and Al had given up on trying to ask him almost eighty years ago.

‘It was great,’ Alphonse said. ‘It’s so different from both Germany and Japan!’

‘I don’t know why we have to go back,’ Ed grumbled.

Their father sighed. ‘You can’t sit around doing nothing for the next hundred years. I got a position as the Engineering professor at Harvard, so I figured it was a good opportunity for the both of you to get out of the house as well.’

Ninety years had done much to calm Edward’s animosity toward his father, and it was only due to this that he didn’t snap at Hohenheim for making decisions for him. In fact, ninety years had dulled his temper as well, though that wasn’t to say he didn’t still have one.

‘Yeah, well, we have homework. Oh, and could you take a look at the leg later? There’s something clicking.’

Hohenheim said he would – after all, the only reason he had become an engineer upon their arrival in this world was so that he could fix his son’s leg when it got worn down. Back in the 1920s, and even still today, it would have been impossible to get someone else to fix it without either screwing up or asking questions. It was better to just do repairs at home.

Edward and Alphonse then continued through the house and into the basement. They spent most of their free time down there – it was the place in their new house that they had claimed as their own. It was large enough to spar in; though Edward technically wasn’t allowed to strain his weakened prosthetic.

It was also where they kept the remnants of their overly-long life. Old textbooks and research sat on the bookshelves that lined one side of the finished room. Yellowed papers with notes written in code were still tucked inside of some of them. There had been a time, after all, when they had thought there was some way they could get back to Amestris.

Now, instead of studying alchemical theory, the boys answered simple questions about chemical reactions they already knew inside and out.

Fantastic.

* * *

“ _KaiKai!!”_

Kai had only a few seconds within stepping through the front door to brace herself before she was hit by a barreling three-year-old. Laughing, she swept the little boy up in her arms. She grunted as she lifted him, smiling.

“I swear – you get heavier every time I lift you! Soon I won’t be able to pick you up anymore!”

The little blond boy giggled. “But KaiKai, I like it when you pick me up!”

“Well then stop growing!” Kai told her little brother, poking him lightly in the chest. The sound of footsteps brought her attention back up, and she smiled at the woman who entered the entrance hall. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Greene. Thanks for taking care of him again today.”

The dark-skinned woman waved her words away. “It’s no problem,” she said in her unique British-Indian accent. “He’s not much trouble … are you, Christopher?”

Kai’s brother shook his head emphatically, throwing his whole body into the motion. “No!” he exclaimed happily.

“Katherine and Neel are both upstairs,” Guara Greene told her. “They’re both doing their homework, so you can’t stay long, but you can go say hello.”

“Thanks,” Kai said to her friend’s mom. “What do you say?” she asked the little boy in her arms. “Do you want to say goodbye to Kathy and Nee?”

Christopher nodded affirmatively, and Kai smiled at the older woman. “We won’t be long,” she promised before walking over to the stairs.

It was harder with a three-year-old in her arms, but she managed to climb the stairs quietly. Her feet then automatically carried her to the door that she knew lead to her best friend’s bedroom. The door was cracked slightly, and Kai could hear the Marina and the Diamonds blasting from inside. She pushed the door open slowly and poked her head into the room.

Katherine was laying stomach-down on her bed, the jacket and combat boots ditched in a black heap on the floor beside. Gollum, the Greenes’ scrawny cat, was curled up comfortably amongst the other piles of laundry, lifting his head only to see who had come in. Kathy had her books out in front of her, and her neon-green-sock-clad feet kicked back and forth as she chewed on the eraser of her pencil. Her phone buzzed beside her, and she checked it only to chuck it back down onto the bed. Apparently, it hadn’t been important.

“Hey, Kath, I’m taking Christopher home now,” Kai called in. Katherine turned, her straight black hair whipping over her shoulder. The eyeliner and the other makeup she wore to school had also been removed, so she looked more like the Kathy Kai had known since childhood than the rebel goddess she went to school with.

“You’re not staying?” Kathy asked with a hopeful pitch to her voice, turning the music down. Kai laughed internally. The girl would do anything to get out of homework.

“Kathy, you know I can’t. Your mom would kill me for keeping you from your homework. And you know better than anyone that I have so much of my own to do.” It wasn’t that she didn’t want to stay. She loved hanging out with her sister, and they hadn’t had much of a chance to do that recently.

“I’ll text you later, then. We still have to have that girl-to-girl time about that bastard that broke your heart. Oh! And prom is this weekend … we’re gonna have to get you re-sorted with that, too.”

“It’s not that big a deal,” Kai protested. “I’m still going – that ticket was expensive! I’ll just go with you instead, and don’t pretend you’re not excited about that.”

“Oh, come on. You always ruin my fun.”

“I love you too, Kath.”

“Bit-ter sweets,” Kathy caught herself, glancing at Christopher. “See you later, bud.”

“Bye-bye,” Christopher waved, grinning. If Kai was a second mother to him, Katherine was definitely the favorite aunt.

Kai backed out of Kathy’s room only to poke her head into Neel’s lair. Neel was thirteen, and he already knew more about computers than she did at almost-seventeen. His room was strewn with various electronic bits and tech magazines, and thus Kai had dubbed it his ‘lair.’ Even she had to admit he was one of those kids that fit easily into the ‘brainy Indian kid’ stereotype.

He’d also had this adorable crush on her since he was about ten and started to notice such things.

“Neel, I’m stealing Christopher back.”

“Nee!”

Neel looked up from where he was doing his homework cross-legged on the floor. He smiled upon seeing her, that sort of nervous smile that people made around the people they liked. Really, it was kind of cute in an adorable sort of way. _She_ knew that _he_ thought that she _didn’t_ know about his crush, but she and Kathy had both known for years. Kathy had given him hell about it before, but Kai had never said anything about it.

“Hey, Kai. All right. Is he coming back tomorrow?”

Kai shook her head. “Mom only has a night class tomorrow, so I’ll be home before she leaves. He’ll be back on Wednesday, though.”

“Alright,” he said, waving his fingers at Christopher, who tried to return the gesture. “Bye, Chris.”

“Bye, Nee!” When Christopher was even younger, he had never pronounced the ‘l’ at the end of Neel’s name. After a while it became habit, and then a nickname.

“Bye, Neel,” Kai repeated after her little brother before turning away and walking back downstairs. When she reached the bottom, she finally put Christopher down to rest her aching arms. Taking his hand instead, she waved and called another ‘thank you’ and a goodbye to Mrs. Greene.

She helped her brother down the front steps, and then they made their way back to their own house, where Kai had parked the truck before going to pick up Christopher. When she was on her own, the walk was only four minutes, but with Christopher it took about eight. The little boy talked on and on about his day and various other things as they walked, and Kai did her best to listen.

“… and then Maggie said I couldn’t see them because I’m a _boy_ and fairies don’t show themselves to boys … KaiKai?”

“Hmn?” Despite her best efforts, her attention had wandered away from her brother as she walked slowly enough that he could keep up, his hand clenched tight around hers. She knew he had been talking about Maggie, the little girl who lived next door to the Greenes and whom Christopher usually played with when he was stuck over there for the day. Past that … no clue.

“Do you see the fairies? You’re a girl.”

Kai looked down into her brother’s large hazel doe-eyes, and she grinned. “I can’t see them now,” she said sorrowfully, “but when I was younger, I was best friends with a fairy.”

“ _Really!?_ ”

She nodded solemnly, and Christopher was awestruck.

“What did she look like?”

“What makes you think it was a girl? There are boy fairies too, but they’re much rarer.”

“Really? Maggie never said that!!”

“Well,” Kai replied with a conspiratorial smile on her face, “I’m older than she is, so doesn’t that mean I know more than she does?”

Christopher just gaped at her. “I can’t wait to tell her!”

The teenager giggled. Little kids were just too precious. She loved her little brother as if he was her own son, and sometimes, it seemed as if she _was_ actually his mother. With their mom at work a lot and their father in California, Kai was often left taking care of the youngest Dallas.

People often commented on the age gap between the two, and most assumed that Christopher was the surprise. In reality, it was Kai who had come unexpectedly at the end of her parents’ senior year of high school, when both her mom and dad – Marie Anderson and Robert Dallas – were only eighteen. Kai had spent most of her first four or five years at her grandparents’ house while her mother worked towards a degree in chemistry at Boston University. Her father, having already committed to a school out in California by the time she was born, wasn’t around much. He came home for the school breaks, and as often as he could outside of that, but that hadn’t been too often.

Her mom and dad had married after both earning their bachelors’ degrees when she was four. Robert stayed out in California to continue his schooling, however, so things didn’t really change much. After Kai started school, though, it was much easier for her mom to juggle both her and college classes. That was when she met Catherine, and after that she would spend time at the Greenes’ house when her mother wasn’t home. Her grandparents, when it was no longer imperative that they stay in Somerville to look after her, moved up to New Hampshire and left the house to their daughter. They still came down to visit often, as it was only an hour’s drive or so.

Really, Kai had been lucky that her grandparents had been so well-off when she was born, enough that they could pay both their daughter’s school fees and half of the expenses for their granddaughter. That and the fact they were fond of Marie’s boyfriend made it much easier for them to be understanding about the incident.

Kai’s parents at least knew what they were going into when they had Christopher. Her dad still lived out in California, working in some high-tech chemistry lab, but they went out to see him every summer and he still came back for Christmas, so it worked out a little better than it had in the past. He still sent money every month, and with the invention of Skype, FaceTime, and other video networking, they saw him multiple times a week.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it was theirs. And really? Kai wouldn’t have it any other way. Was that cheesy? It probably was. She knew it was.

“But KaiKai, what do fairies _look_ like?”

Kai was amazed he had remembered she hadn’t answered his question. “Just like a Dallas,” she said, ruffling his blond hair with her free hand, “remembering things and asking the right questions.” Christopher beamed up at her with pride at the praise.

“Well,” she continued, “our house is right up there. Can you wait until we’re home for the answer? Can you wait that long?” He nodded firmly, and she swept him up into her arms once again as they crossed the crosswalk and carried on to their house.

Her truck was still in the driveway where she parked it, with her schoolbag and her gym bag still sitting in the bed. She hadn’t even gone inside before leaving to pick Christopher up. She’d been late anyway, due to the Prom Committee meeting after school. The only reason she hadn’t driven straight to Kathy’s house was because she enjoyed the walk, especially with Christopher at her side.

“Okay, bud. I need to put you down.” She did, and grabbed the bags from the back. When her back was turned, Christopher dashed up to the front door and stood impatiently, waiting for her to follow. She drew the house key from her bag and unlocked the door, allowing the bundle of energy to precede her into the house.

* * *

“Fairies,” she began when the both of them were situated in the living room “are very elusive.”

“What does e-loos-if mean?”

“It means they’re shy, and don’t show themselves often. Even when they do let humans see them, it’s rare that you’ll see their true form.” As she spoke, she looked over the criminal law work she’d been given after school. Over the last two years, she had become an expert at talking with Christopher and doing her work at the same time.

“But _you_ saw them! You said so! And Maggie said so too!”

“They’re usually seen as colored light. Yellow or purple or blue … sometimes they’re red. Or green. Or pink. Really, they can be any color they want.” Great, this looked like they had just been reviewing Friday’s lesson on homicide, another class she had missed but had made up for over the weekend. This should be fairly easy. She glared down at the brace on her wrist … and removed it. Her wrist was feeling better than it had this morning, and there was _no_ way she was doing all this writing with her right hand.

So she talked fairies with her brother and did her homicide homework for the next hour. Really, she thought on more than one occasion, I’m talking about fairies while reading about murder. What could be a better combination?

After a while, Christopher got tired of watching her work and wandered off to play with his own toys in another room. Kai, as much as she loved her brother, was quite relieved when he did. She could still see him through the doorway, and she asked him to remain within her line of sight. Still, she could actually concentrate on her homework now with the quiet. She didn’t actually have too much that night compared to the amount of work she’d brought home before.

She was nearly done when her mom came home from work at six. From the living room, she heard the telltale click of the front door. Standing up for the first time in hours, she both heard and felt her joints crack as she stretched out. She tossed her pencil down onto the pile of papers, and left to greet her mother.

“ _Momma!_ ” Christopher ran out of the next room over and greeted their mother in the same way he had greeted Kai at the Greene’s house.

“Hey, sweetie,” Marie Dallas said, crouching down to ruffle his hair before drawing him into a hug. Kai watched from the door to the entranceway, unable to keep the smile off her face. A moment later, she stepped forward to take her mom’s briefcase from her and put it in its usual resting spot.

Marie stood to greet her eldest, ruffling her hair as well. In the Dallas family, hair-ruffling was a sign of affection as common as hugs or endearments. Kai couldn’t remember when it had started, it just … had always been. It was just one of those things that made the Dallases the Dallases. However, she suspected it was probably due to the fact her father was at least a foot taller than her mother, and probably always had been. From the stories she had heard from her parents, she saw her teenage father ruffling her teenage mother’s hair as a form of annoyance, then flirtation, then affection.

Marie Susanne Dallas, born Marie Susanne Anderson, was only thirty-five years old. Kai was often struck with how young she seemed sometimes, and how much they looked alike. It was from her mother that Kai had gotten her blue eyes, pin-straight hair and defined cheekbones – not to mention her height. The dirty blonde shade of her hair was her father’s – her mother’s hair was a beautiful auburn color that she envied.

“Have you gotten your homework done yet, Kai?”

Kai sighed. “It’s taking longer because of my hand. I had to take the brace off … I was never going to get it done using the other hand or writing with it on.”

“Kai …”

“I know!” she insisted, cutting her mother off. “I’ll put it on as soon as I’m done, promise.”

“I just worry, Kai.”

Another sigh. Since she had entered high school and started juggling gymnastics and schoolwork and extracurriculars, Marie had gone into mother-hen mode. She was always worried that Kai wasn’t getting enough sleep or was stretching herself too thin or just wasn’t taking care of herself the way she should be. Which Kai understood and appreciated, really, but sometimes it got to be a little overbearing.

“Momma, Momma! What’s for dinner?”

Marie laughed. “Sweetie, I’ve been home for five minutes. Give me ten more, and then I’ll figure it out.”

“Come on, Christopher. Let’s go watch another episode of Zoboomafoo until dinner,” Kai suggested, knowing how to distract him from his hunger. Although there was a thirteen year age gap between them, she was raising him on the same shows she had watched as a child – some of what was on television now was just trash.

“Okay!” the little boy exclaimed happily as he turned away from their mother, who shot Kai a look of relief. The teenager then shepherded her brother into the living room and inserted a disc from the set into the DVD player. She queued up one of the episodes – one that she had seen a billion times but Christopher had only seen once before – and set it playing as she went back to her homework.

Dinner was called half an hour later, and both children were glad. Even Kai had begun to get hungry. Conversation that night went as it usually did, with Christopher coming up with new antics to keep his mother and sister laughing.

All was good and well in the Dallas household, and Kai would remember it later as the calm before the storm. Perhaps – if she had known – she would have lingered longer at the dinner table. As it was, the work and expectations pressed upon her caused her to leave early – as per usual – and retreat up to her bedroom in an attempt to keep up with school.


	5. Tuesday, May 13 (2013)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter originally posted on fanfiction.net on 08.24.2014

Kai came home from school the next day in an irritable rage. She muttered angrily at herself under her breath as she stormed into the house, cursing just about anything and everything to Hell. People sucked, and that was that. Every time she deluded herself into thinking otherwise, something came along and disillusioned her again. She stormed upstairs, ignoring everything else around her. She wasn’t even paying attention as she slung her bag into a corner of her room, and the resulting crash of the bookshelf it knocked over caused her to wince. She glanced back at it and a sigh escaped her. She would have to clean it up later, she realized with a sinking feeling.

As it was, she ignored the mess as she headed straight for her bed. She perched on the edge with a huff before allowing herself to flop backward to stare at the ceiling. If she could just lay there for the rest of eternity and never have to deal with the outside world again, then she would be happy. It seemed that everything was falling down on her at once, and she was fed up with it. She didn’t need this crap.

She pulled her phone out of her left pocket and woke it up to a picture of her and her father before she typed her passcode in with one hand. She cursed as she missed a number and it told her she had to try again. After the second try it unlocked to her home screen of a beaming Christopher, and she unconsciously smiled despite her terrible mood. Tapping the green phone app, she called up Kathy’s number and pressed the device to her ear.

“Please tell me you don’t have a lot of homework tonight,” she pleaded as soon as she heard her friend pick up.

“Uhm, I don’t think so …” Kathy replied. “Kai, what’s wrong?”

“I just really need to talk with you about various things,” Kai replied, trying to keep her voice calm and under control as she stared at the ceiling. She really didn’t need to worry her friend even further by barking her ear off or bursting into tears.

“Okayy,” Katherine said slowly, “I’ll text you when I’m done with my homework … are we meeting at the Field?”

“Yeah,” Kai affirmed. ‘The Field’ referred to Nunziato Field, the dog park that was situated on the corner just across from Kai’s house and a little way down the street from Kathy’s. For as long as they had been able to get out of the house on their own, that was where they would meet up and hang out.

“All right. I’ll text you. See ya, sis.”

The line went dead, and Kai plugged the white rectangle into the charger by her bed. She too had homework to do, even though it was a Tuesday and she had been in school all day, but she had zero interest in doing it. Instead, she reluctantly pulled herself up and sat on her bed, making no move toward doing anything productive. 

Her room was fairly clean, comparatively. Her clothes were all put away in their mahogany drawers, her desk was organized, and the things that didn’t fit in the closet were arranged neatly around the edges. The dark wood-paneled floor was covered with a forest green area rug. Like many other teenagers, she had posters taped to her pale green walls. Rather than the boy-band posters Kathy had been guilty of in middle school, Kai’s walls boasted The Killers’ _Day & Age _ album art, a My Chemical Romance Killjoys banner, and an old Panic! At The Disco concert poster, as well as images of the 2012 Olympic gymnastics team and the campus of Harvard University.

Against the organization of the rest of the space, the collapsed bookshelf and resulting landslide of books was quite obvious, and Kai knew it would bother her until it was fixed. In addition, it looked like a distraction from her homework. She pushed herself from the bed with a groan and crossed the room until she was staring down at the mess she had made. She sighed. It wasn’t often that she found herself in a temper, but she really needed to learn to stay cognizant of her surroundings when she was mad. Finding her bag underneath the paperbacks and hardcovers, she grabbed the strap and dragged it out from under the mess to leave only the books.

Damn, she thought as she surveyed the damage, it looks like I actually broke one of the shelves. She wasn’t really surprised though – the shelf was one of the cheap ones she had gotten from Target to hold her growing manga collection in eighth grade. She hadn’t touched any of the books on it since freshman year, and so she hadn’t thought to replace it. It looked like she would be doing that sometime soon, now.

“Looks like I don’t even know my own strength,” she joked quietly to herself. “No shelf is safe around the mighty Kai Marie Dallas – their spines all quiver in their books when they see me coming.” She grinned at the pun, and got to work.

Ten minutes later, as many of the books as possible were back on the remaining shelves, but Kai was still left with a number of books that were left without a spot to go. Since there was nothing she could do about it, she stacked the remaining books neatly on top of the short shelf. She glanced down at the last book that was to go on the pile – _Fullmetal Alchemist: Volume 5_ – and was struck by a sudden sense of nostalgia. Manga and anime, especially _Fullmetal Alchemist_ had been her _life_ near the end of middle school, back when she was into that sort of thing and before gymnastics and school took over her life.

Kai reached to put it with the rest of them, but paused and retracted her hand before she put it down. A small voice in her subconscious told her she didn’t have _too_ much homework that night, and she deserved some time to herself. Instead of putting the book back, she found herself taking a couple more from the shelf. If she was going to do this, she told herself, she might as well make it a worthwhile trip down memory lane.

She didn’t mean to get sucked in, but an hour later saw her on her fourth volume. She wasn’t reading them in order – she had numbers five, ten, thirteen, and twenty-three. As she read, her brain began to remember the missing plot in between. She almost felt like she was the girl in middle school again, the one who could fill her brain with fantasies and crushes on fictional characters. She was the girl who dressed as those characters and had the time to go to conventions. She was the girl who was satisfied with life, with a best friend and a fun boyfriend and a sport she enjoyed and hardly a care in the world.

Oh, how she missed that girl.

When her phone finally _beep-beep-be-deep_ ’ed with the text from Katherine, Kai dropped volume twenty-three as if it were a hot potato as she was jerked back into the present. With a sad smile, she got up and stashed the books back on the broken shelf. Perhaps – if she ever found free time again – she would get back to them.

_Katherine Greene  
_ I just finished, see you at the field?

_Kai Dallas  
_ Yeah

After she sent her answering message swiftly, she yanked the device from its charger cable. She slid the phone back into her left pocket, and then walked out of her bedroom and down the stairs.

“Kath and I are meeting at the Field,” she called to her mother before she left. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Okay,” Marie responded, “stay safe.”

It’s only across the street, Kai wanted to say, but she knew that it was a Mom Thing to say things like that. She’d tried putting up an argument before, and it hadn’t ever gotten her anywhere. With that in mind, she simply left without responding again. Her mom was used to that.

Katherine was already in their usual meeting spot when Kai got there. The dark-skinned girl had already abandoned her rebel fashionista look. Her long dark hair was up in a messy bun and her thick-rimmed hipster glasses sat upon her makeup-free face. Her miniskirt and off-the-shoulder ripped top of the day were replaced by comfier leggings and a tank top. Her father’s old combat boots were still laced to her feet, but Kai couldn’t blame her – she knew from experience that the things were damn comfortable.

And yet she was still beautiful. Kai knew her own ponytail, t-shirt, and jeans couldn’t even compare. They never did.

Upon seeing her best friend, Kai felt the rage from earlier beginning to reappear. The Elrics had managed to suppress it while she was distracted, but now it was returning full force. She just needed someone to rant to, and Kathy was the perfect person.

Scratch that – she was the _only_ person. If she didn’t have Kathy … she didn’t know what she would do.

“Hey, girl … what’s wrong? You look like something just bit you in the ass.”

Kai sighed and collapsed next to her friend, who was sitting with her back against the largest tree at the edge of the park. She didn’t say anything for a few moments, wrestling to get her emotions back under control. When she felt as if she could speak without bursting into tears, she did.

“It’s David,” she finally said. Determined not to cry, she ended up speaking the words through tightly gritted teeth. “He stopped me after school earlier. Wanted to _talk_ with me, y’know?”

She didn’t look at Katherine as she spoke. She could already imagine the outrage and concern on her friend’s face as the taller half-Indian girl cursed loudly.

“What excuses did he make?” Kathy asked, following the expletive. 

“I don’t actually know,” Kai responded bitterly. “I mean, he’s pretty much already spoken for himself. He cheated on me twice … what more is there? I don’t think I actually need to listen to him.”

Her words were tough, but it was only a front and they both knew it. 

_“Kai, please. I heard Elizabeth talking … I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out that way.”_

_“Yeah? And how_ did _you want me to find out? Were you_ ever _going to tell me?”_

_“Of course I was. Tex …”_

_“Twice, David._ Twice. _I … I don’t want to talk about this right now.”_

She’d had tears streaming down her face as she pushed out the front doors. She’d run away. Why had she done that? She’d decided just the day before that she didn’t love him anymore. She had been _determined_ to end it, and when the moment came she had lost her nerve and left them in the same limbo they’d been in before. Her vision blurred as she sniffled something horrendous, and she’d known her face was red and splotchy. She had never been an elegant crier.

It had been a few minutes before she had forcefully calmed herself and wiped her tears away enough so that she didn’t get herself killed walking home. She hadn’t taken the truck that morning, as she hadn’t needed to drive to gymnastics in the middle of the day. The last image she’d seen of David was running circles in her head at top speed – the open mouth and the shock in his eyes as she’d shut him down cold.

_What the hell had she done?_

As she walked, she had managed to stifle the sobs until they were just little hiccups. Eventually, the sadness had worn away to anger. How dare he cheat on her twice, and then ask for her forgiveness? How could he say he’d change, _again_ , when they both knew he never would?

He’d never actually said those things, she knew. She hadn’t given him the time. She didn’t _want_ to hear those things. It was almost easier to remain blissfully ignorant.

And David wasn’t the only boy causing her grief. Her rage was also somewhat directed toward the new kids – the Cirle siblings. They had been talking with her yesterday … it almost seemed that at least Alan wanted to be friends. She had shared every single class with at least one of them that day – the day after – and neither of them had spoken a single word to her.

“Well you know what?” Katherine finally said as soon as Kai had spilled her guts, calmed her rage, and cried her eyes out, “I know you’re going to get this figured out. Either David’s gonna shape up, or you’re going to dump his sorry ass, because fuck them. Fuck all of them. I mean, whatever, right? Obviously you’re just too fabulous for them,” she stated matter-of-factly. “And quite frankly, that Eric character is a bit of an ass.” 

At this, Kai managed to crack a smile through her red-rimmed eyes and wet face. It was true – Kathy and Eric clashed about as badly as polka dots and plaid. They had argued and snapped at each other all the way through pre-calc, making it nigh-on impossible for her to concentrate on any of her work. The teacher had hardly noticed, and even if he had he wouldn’t have done anything about it. Mr. Lambdas held the reputation of the school drunk, and students swore the liquid in his water bottle didn’t smell like water. Kai, too, could confirm this allegation.

“Oh!” she suddenly exclaimed, wiping the remaining tears away firmly, “You know how Eric has that limp, like? Like one of his legs just doesn’t work properly?”

Katherine looked at her. “Mmn, yeah, I noticed that. I didn’t want to say anything though – I don’t like him much, but I didn’t want to be insensitive, you know?”

“Yeah,” Kai replied in agreement. “Anyhow, he’s in my gym class, along with Alan, and get this – it’s a prosthetic.” At her friend’s curious gaze, she continued, “no, really! He was talking with Mr. Carlson in his office when I went to turn in my activity paper for my absence yesterday! I walked in just as he was dropping his pant leg … it was definitely silver rather than skin-tone.”

“What kind of prosthetic was it? I mean, most are made of some sort of carbon fiber …” Kathy loved engineering, and she certainly knew what she was talking about when it came to it. Kai sometimes found it ironic that her parents had failed to get her interested in science and technology, but her best friend was fascinated by it. “… And they don’t look like actual legs.”

Kai sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at it. I don’t think I was supposed to see in the first place – he got this really odd look on his face when he turned to see me standing there. I wasn’t about to ask, either.”

With a fed-up sigh, Kai turned so that she could lie flat on her back against the ground. The cool late-afternoon spring air just felt so _good_. She loved being outdoors more than anything. It always had a calming effect on her. Being outside meant she wasn’t trapped by her hectic life. Speaking of …

“Shit,” she swore, sitting bolt upright. When Kathy looked over at her in alarm, she said “I still haven’t done any of my homework.

“What have you been _doing_ then, girl? Usually you’re mostly done by now!”

“I … kinda rediscovered my old manga shelf,” Kai admitted sheepishly. “I accidentally started rereading FMA and lost track of time.”

Katherine cast her a knowing look. “You needed that. You can’t be all work and no play, Kaigirl.”

“I know, I know,” Kai said, standing up. “It was nice. But I _really_ need to get my work done – Dad is supposed to be calling tonight, and Mom won’t let me talk unless I have everything to a point where I can finish quickly. So yeah. I’ll see you later!”

* * *

Due to a bit more procrastinating on her part, Kai was only just finishing her pre-calc homework that evening when her computer _bwopped_ with an incoming Skype call. Staring down at the last problem, she put her pencil aside with a sigh and clicked to accept it. Problem twenty-seven could wait an hour or so, she decided.

It took a couple moments to sync both the webcams, but it wasn’t long at all before the girl was looking back at familiar hazel eyes and neatly combed blond hair. She couldn’t help the smile that twitched at the corners of her mouth – she had given up acting the indifferent teenager when her dad called. She had gone through that stage when she was fourteen, and it really just wasn’t worth it.

“Hey, Dad,” She said, closing her pre-calc textbook with an audible _thud_. “How have you been?”

“Hey, Kai. I’ve been alright, thanks. How’s school been? I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t gotten to talk with you much. Sorry ‘bout that,” her father apologized.

Kai shrugged. “It’s been good. I still have a math problem left to do, but it won’t be difficult to finish.”

“No chemistry homework I can help you with tonight? That’s rare.”

Chemistry was what Robert Dallas did for a living, and it was what kept him away from the rest of the family so much. After college he had gotten a job at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory working with the team of scientists on element 116, or Livermorium as it had been named. He had spent years in Russia working at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, and during that time, communication had been limited. Since he arrived back in California almost five years ago, the entire family had been making more of an effort to keep in touch.

In fact, the Dallases were planning on flying out to California that summer to spend a few weeks together. It was a trip that they hadn’t missed in the last four years. Things would be different this year, however – this year Katherine would be flying out with them to spend a couple weeks as well, and Kai was so excited. And afterwards, when Marie and Christopher flew back to Massachusetts with Kathy, Kai would stay in California for a summer internship her father had landed for her at the lab.

“No, no chemistry homework tonight. I got that done yesterday, sorry.”

Kai and her father talked for a while longer about this and that. School, the east coast, Christopher, and what Kai wanted for her birthday were only a couple of the topics that came up. Kai didn’t say anything about David. She was still almost ashamed of her actions earlier that day, and she knew her dad would tell her that she shouldn’t have run away. She knew that, okay? _She knew that_. 

It’s just so much harder to actually let go than to tell yourself you will. 

“So how’s work?” Kai asked, trying to get the conversation off her. “Have you made your breakthrough discovery yet?”

Robert Dallas sighed and ran his hand back through his hair before taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes tiredly. When he put them back on, he looked at his daughter.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Kai said wryly, twisting one corner of her mouth into a half-smile.

“No, actually Kai, it’s been going well. _Really_ well. It’s just that I’ve had to fill out a hell of a lot of paperwork lately, and I don’t even know how to fill most of it in.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It’s … it’s hard to explain without sounding like I’m high off something,” he said, mussing his hair again. “Promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”

“I promise.”

“Well, there was a … mishap … at the lab a couple days ago. Some intern left the door to the testing room open and we ended up with a radiation leak, so we had to evacuate. Dr. Russo didn’t make it out with the rest of us. But when we went back in, there was nothing. She wasn’t there. The Livermorium wasn’t there … they _literally_ vanished. I’m not making this up, I swear,” he added upon seeing Kai’s skeptical face.

“I didn’t say you were,” she replied. “It doesn’t seem to be something you would joke about. But … isn’t it possible that she just stole it?”

“Yeah, well, it seems possible, but we have no proof of anything – the cameras shorted out during the evacuation. The higher-ups didn’t believe me until they saw for themselves. And now I have a bunch of paperwork to fill out. But I don’t know how to fill it out, because I don’t know if it was a death at the workplace, or if it was a theft, and if it was, I don’t know what happened. Really, it shouldn’t even be my job. It should be Dr. Russo’s. But …”

The ‘but’ was easily understood as he trailed off and they both fell silent.

“What did you mean by ‘really well?’”

As it was, despite the missing persons / theft incident, the research had been progressing at an almost breakneck speed. For the first time ever, they had stabilized enough atoms to create an object visible to the naked eye … although it had recently disappeared. Luckily, they had been running two tests at the same time, so it wouldn’t take long for the backup to reach the size of the original piece. 

“It’s weird,” Mr. Dallas continued, “We’ve classified it as radioactive, but it doesn’t act like the rest of the radioactive elements. It’s a complete anomaly.”

“Kai?” A new voice asked. 

Kai turned away from her father to see her mother standing in the doorway to her bedroom. “Yeah?”

“Can you watch Christopher for a bit? I need to run out to the grocery store … hey, Honey,” she added when she saw her husband over the Skype interface.

“Evenin’, Darling.”

“Uhg,” Kai groaned good-heartedly. “If you’re gonna be cutesy, don’t do it in _my_ room over _my_ computer, alright? I’m gonna go find my baby brother.

Marie laughed. “All right, Kai,” she said, ruffling her daughter’s hair as the blonde made to exit the room. “I’ll be going in five minutes or so. Just let me say hi to your father.

“Okaay. Bye, Daddy!”

Problem twenty-seven could wait a little longer.


	6. Monday, June 3 (2013)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kai and Alphonse are assigned to work on a project together, and Kai begins to have her suspicions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter originally posted on fanfiction.net on 09.06.2014
> 
> I know I'm posting without editing for both posterity and the fact that if I had to edit I would never get it posted... but hot damn, have I improved since I wrote these chapters.

The days and weeks passed, as they are apt to do, and then it was the beginning of June. The hype that came along with the last few weeks of school was beginning to ensnare even Kai. Of course, along with the excitement came an influx of work as the teachers tried to cram in the last few units before finals. Even though she was done with prom committee, as prom had come and gone, Kai still found herself overwhelmed with everything she had to get done before school was over. 

It was a Monday – June third, to be exact – and Kai was running late getting back from gymnastics once again. She had stayed after for a few extra minutes to finish perfecting one of the moves for the floor routine she would perform at her competition out in California that summer, against her better judgment. Despite breaking the speed limit on her way back to school, she still entered her Spanish class about five minutes later than usual.

When she stepped into the room, she froze. There was someone in her seat. Why was there someone in her seat? Where would she sit now? _What was going on?_

“You’re late,” Señor Martinez said disapprovingly, drawing her attention away from her filled seat. 

She had no excuse this time. She handed her pass over with confidence she didn’t feel, and would have gone straight to her seat if it weren’t for the fact she had no clue where she was supposed to sit. Instead, she stood at the front of the room holding her messenger bag as she shifted her weight between feet. 

Señor Martinez looked up. “I assigned seats,” he told her. “You are between Mr. Cirle and Ms. Dixon. Take a seat.”

She did so, sliding smoothly into her seat as she swung her bag off her shoulder. Alan looked over at her, and she smiled and rolled her eyes at him. Over the past couple weeks – despite the initial cold shoulder they had given her – she had established a shaky friendship with the Cirle brothers. It revolved mainly around the boys being table partners in chemistry with herself and Heather on lab days. That, along with the fact she shared every class except Criminal Law with at least one of them, had forced them to become what would be best described as friendly acquaintances. 

Kai had to admit that the seating assignment had taken the noise of the class down considerably, and she found it much easier to concentrate on the conjugation of irregular verbs than it ever had been. In fact, the entire class was much more enjoyable. Then there was the additional perk that she’d had the fortune to be seated next to the younger of the Cirle brothers, whom she was still hoping to actually become friends with at some point.

Some god somewhere must have been smiling upon her that day, or perhaps, in the long run, it had condemned her to Hell. It was the Spanish project assigned that day which would lead her down the path to the doors of doom.

“Your task is to create a PowerPoint that details a specific aspect of a Spanish-speaking country’s culture, entirely _en espagñol_. You may work with one of the people either beside you or behind you, or you can work alone. You may find your partner now as I hand out the grading rubric,” Señor Martinez announced.

The assignment was met with a general reception of groans and complaints. _I’m not good with technology_ , one girl lamented rather loudly. Kai bit her lip. Now would be her chance, and she scolded herself for being so apprehensive about it. It wasn’t like she was asking him out or confessing her undying love. It made sense – she knew him, they were sort of friends, and she hated Emily Dixon. So therefore …

“Uhm, do you want to work together?” Kai heard the words exit her mouth but wasn’t consciously aware of speaking them. When Alan turned toward her, she immediately pulled herself together. “I mean, I kind of really don’t want to work with Emily, and Rachel is already working with Brian, it looks like … soo … uhh …”

Goodness, she could talk to adults just fine – she could handle official, grown-up conversations easily – and yet she was reduced to a stammering mess when she tried to talk to people her own age. It was no wonder that she only had one best friend, and that she had met said best friend back in preschool. It was miraculous that she had a boyfriend at all.

“I don’t see why not,” Alan told her, gesturing with his hands. “Do you have any ideas?”

Kai thought a moment. “Perhaps we could do Spain, rather than one of the countries in the Americas,” she suggested.

They talked until the bell rang, and Kai found herself walking down the hall beside him after school let out for the day. Neither of them said much, but they were definitely walking together. When Alan stopped at his locker, Kai stopped as well.

“So, how are we going to do this? You do the research, I do the PowerPoint? The other way around? Do we get together and work on the thing together some day?”

Alan paused for a minute, thinking. “Here,” he said, pulling his cell out of his pocket and pressing a few buttons. “Enter yourself in there. I’ll text you later and we can get things figured out.”

Okay … she had not been expecting that. “Alright,” she said, taking it from his hand. She quickly entered _Kai Dallas (857) 555-2213_ into the open contact spot and handed it back to him. As she did, she took the time to observe his locker. She had found in the years she had attended SHS that one could learn a lot about a person by examining what they kept in their lockers. There wasn’t much – he hadn’t even gotten a lock for it. A couple books, the raincoat he had probably worn to school that morning. On the inside of the door, though, there was one picture. It appeared to actually be a photo of an old photograph, one that was slightly worn and torn and printed in sepia. 

The girl in the photo looked to be about fifteen or sixteen, with a round face and long blonde hair tied up in a ponytail. She was grinning widely for the camera, looking up from whatever she had been doing. It looked to be something mechanical, as the girl held something that looked like a screwdriver in her hand. She was … oddly familiar to Kai, and yet she had no clue why.

“It’s our … grandmother … when she was young. She gave this photo to us before she died. Brother and I thought it would be best to preserve the original by taking new pictures of it,” Alan explained when he caught Kai looking.

“Ah,” Kai said. “I was wondering. That’s nice,” she said, still kicking herself trying to figure out who the girl looked like – and why she would recognize her. She shook her head. It was nothing. “I’d best be going,” she said, tearing her eyes away from the photograph. “Talk to you later?”

“Yeah,” Alan said. “Bye, Kai.”

Kai only made it a few yards before she stopped cold in her tracks. She clenched her fists tightly, breathing deeply in an attempt to control her rising emotions. _Ten … nine … eight …_

“Kai?” Al called after her, “are you okay?”

 _Five … four … three … two … one_.

She spun on her heel back toward where Al was standing, perplexed. “I’m just fine,” she said, forcing a grin. “I’m just gonna go around the other way, I think. Bye, Alan.”

Of course. It was a new month wasn’t it? New month, new girl. It looked as if the pattern would continue, and Kai didn’t know what the fuck to do about it. She pulled her phone and earbuds out of her bag, placed her music on shuffle, and soon the outside world was drowning in Paramore as she stalked down the hall to her own locker.

_Just talk yourself up and tear yourself down._

Shrugging into her own raincoat, she turned the volume up as high as she could without permanently damaging her eardrums. She ignored everyone and everything on her way out of the school. When she accidentally bumped into someone in the front lobby, she glared up at them before storming out. Only once she was outside the school did she realize she person she had so rudely rammed into was Eric.

Whatever.

_And I put my faith in you – so much faith – and then you just threw it away._

It was almost sickening just how much the stupid song applied to her situation. Kai was grateful when the song finally rolled over into something a little more innocuous. There weren’t going to be any more chances. This was the last straw. She was done with it – the lies, the puppydog eyes … everything. 

“You are a brick tied to me that’s da-raggin’ me down. Strike a match and I’ll burn you to-o the ground,” Kai sang along viciously as she drove home in the rain. David was a brick, along with a couple other words that rhymed nicely. On that drive, she felt her resolve harden once more – she wasn’t going to give in again. 

_I’m gonna change you like a remix, then I’ll raise you like a phoenix …_

* * *

That afternoon, Kai did not have much inclination to do anything at all. She did what homework was due the next day, but homework that wouldn’t be due for a couple days was ignored completely. Her phone was plugged into her stereo and still on shuffle, so she’d get songs from Imagine Dragons to Green Day and back again. Her mom had knocked on the door more than once, but Kai ignored her each time.

To her utter shame, she had been unable to stop the tears from rolling down her face to make little dots on her bedcovers. She had done so well – she hadn’t cried in years, yet in the past few weeks, her eyes had leaked more saltwater than they ever had before. And it was entirely his fault. It was ironic, really. When she was younger she had told herself that she would never be one of those girls to cry over a _boy_ of all things. She’d thought those girls were helpless and pathetic.

Well, she did feel helpless. And pathetic. So really, her younger self wasn’t entirely wrong. 

She breathed deeply as she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. Her glasses were folded up on the bed beside her. After all, saltwater was a bitch to get off glasses. Kai knew she looked a mess. Her face was surely red and splotchy, and she probably looked as if she had conjunctivitis in both eyes. What little mascara she had worn that day was now smeary black spots on her face and hands.

“Put on your war paint,” she whispered to herself sardonically.

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and her blurry uncorrected gaze floated around until it landed on the discarded manga at the foot of her bed. With some effort, she lurched forward to grab it. She was met with the cover of _Fullmetal Alchemist: Volume 17_ , the one she had been reading last night before she had gone to sleep. They were just entering Rush Valley, she remembered as she flipped open to where her bookmark had been left. 

You know those moments where you realize something, or you think you’ve forgotten something, and your entire body freezes while you get that funny thumping feeling in your head? Yeah, that’s the one. 

Kai froze. So _that’s_ where she recognized Alan’s grandmother from. Honestly, the girl in the sepia photograph was nearly the spitting image of Winry Rockbell, right down to the tool in her hand. At least, she would be if Winry Rockbell was a three-dimensional person and not a construction of lines on a page. Staring down at the page in realization, Kai couldn’t help the smile that crept across her face. She loved FMA parallels in real life. Even now they were like fine chocolate to her repressed otaku soul.

Had this been a couple years ago, she may have tried to use this as proof that the Gate _did_ exist, that Amestris _was_ real … but this was now, and she shook the feeling off. Just another parallel, she told herself as she continued reading from where she had left off the night before. It was a wonderful, wonderful distraction from the train wreck that was currently her life as she lost herself in Amestris and the troubles of the Elrics instead of her own.

Still, she was a little freaked. It was just _so_ similar. The eye shape, the length of the hair, the hairstyle ... _the freaking screwdriver_ … so when her phone beeped as it usually did, she jumped nearly a foot. Stuffing the bookmark back into the book, she looked to see who had texted her.

 _(857) 555-7490  
_ It’s Alan.

The number she didn’t recognize, but there was only one Alan with her cell number. She stared at the short message for a few moments. It just seemed a little surreal. She had been hoping to become friends with this guy since she had first met him, and here she was about to be texting him about a school project. She didn’t hesitate to add his name to her contacts, or text him back.

 _Kai Dallas  
_ Hey, Alan. So, project?

 _Alan Cirle  
_ Yeah … what are you thinking?

 _Kai Dallas  
_ Well, Spain, right?

 _Alan Cirle  
_ Yep.

Yet even as she texted him, Kai couldn’t get the image of the Winry doppelganger out of her head … on impulse, she got up from her bed and walked across her room to her desk. She quickly booted her laptop, tapping her fingers impatiently as she waited for everything to fire up. As soon as it would let her, she opened Firefox and typed in the address for Google. 

Selecting the option for ‘images’ at the top of the page, her fingers hovered hesitantly above the keys before they entered _FMA_ _Winry Rockbell_ into the search bar. After browsing through multiple thumbnails, she finally selected one. Kai bit her lip – she was being positively foolish. Ah well, she’d have her laugh and then the entire incident would be forgotten. That would be good. She couldn’t afford to have this distracting her.

Right click.

Print.

* * *

Edward leaned against the wall of Somerville High School’s main lobby, his hands shoved into the pockets of his rain jacket. He kept most of his weight on his right leg – rainy weather caused his stump to hurt when he put pressure on it. Back in Amestris, when he had proper automail, the pain hadn’t been nearly as bad as it had been for the past ninety-five years or so with his chimera of a prosthetic. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but it was the only one … and if there was anything Edward Elric could do well, it was making do with what he had.

With a little bit of effort, he pushed himself away from the wall to limp out to where he could more easily see down the hall. Al was definitely taking an unusually long time to get down to the front today … Ed wondered where his brother could have gotten caught up. Distracted with scanning the crowd for Alphonse, he didn’t see the girl storming toward him until it was almost too late.

Luckily, he managed to move out of the way just enough that it was a glancing blow rather than a full-on collision. The girl who rammed into him shot him a murderous, teary blue glare and didn’t even apologize as she strode off. Ed recognized her with surprise – he didn’t know her too well, but Kai Dallas was in most of his classes. Despite the Elrics’ reluctance to make friends with anyone, it had just sort of happened due to her constant presence. It wasn’t like they were best friends – they hardly talked outside of class – but they were friends enough that Edward was slightly concerned about what had happened. 

Alphonse came up not too long after. “Sorry I’m late,” he apologized, and Edward turned back towards him from where he had been watching Kai leave. Al looked at him. “Brother, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, really,” Ed replied, rubbing his arm where Kai had rammed into him. The girl might be short, but she was definitely solid. “Kai just stormed out here looking really upset. I know we don’t really know her, but I can’t help but wonder what’s wrong …” He hated seeing girls cry. 

“So she really _wasn’t_ okay …” Al mused, thinking about when she had left him. 

Ed looked inquisitively at his little brother. “What do you mean?”

“Oh. Uhm … I’ll tell you on the way home.” Al hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud, and now he’d have to tell Ed about the Spanish project … and the fact he and Kai had exchanged numbers … and that Kai had seen the picture of Winry he kept in his locker … he swallowed hard.

“Okaayy,” Edward replied, drawing out the word skeptically. “Come on, let’s go. I have a freaking English essay to write tonight.”

“Brother! You need to stop putting these things off until the last minute!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” the elder brother said, resettling the backpack slung over his shoulder. “It’s not like these classes actually matter, right? Besides, I always get it done.”

Alphonse sighed. Nine decades hadn’t done anything to temper his brother’s personality, it seemed. As they exited the school into the dreary weather beyond, however, his thoughts turned to the situation at hand. What would be the best way to tell Ed about the project? And the picture? When they had first talked about going back to school, Al had been certain it would be his more volatile brother who would eventually blow their cover. In an ironic turn of events, it seemed, it would be his fault if things fell to pieces.

Eventually, he just blurted it out.

‘Dammit,’ Edward cursed in Amestrian as there was no one else around to hear him them. ‘Dammit, dammit, _dammit_.’ 

‘Brother?’ Al prompted his sibling gently when he didn’t expound any further on the subject, easily sliding into Amestrian as well. 

The older Elric brother exhaled loudly, never taking his eyes off the road in front of him. ‘We knew this would be difficult, especially with that freaking anime out now,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t think we would be discovered _this_ soon. Shit …’

Alphonse thought for a moment before his mouth hardened. ‘Well, we haven’t been discovered yet,’ he said firmly. ‘There’s still a possibility Kai won’t think anything of it. And if she does … Brother, I think we can trust her.’

‘We thought we could trust Hiromi,’ Edward muttered in response, glancing moodily out the side window, ‘and we both know how well _that_ turned out …’ he paused. ‘But … if Kai already knows everything … perhaps she could help us.’

‘Help us? How?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ Ed admitted, ‘but there has to be something. If she’s smart enough to discover the truth and if she’s open-minded enough to accept it without freaking out …’ he trailed off. The ‘not freaking out’ part was probably the most important piece of the matter. The boys knew what fangirls could be like, and it quite honestly scared them.

‘It _would_ be nice having an ally outside of you and Dad,’ Al agreed. 

‘Yeah …’

They pulled into their driveway not too long afterward. From the absence of their father’s car, the brothers could tell that their he wasn’t home yet. A heavy silence settled over the two of them as they climbed out of their car and grabbed their bags. 

‘Hey, Ed?’ Al asked as they walked up toward their house. When his older brother looked at him, he continued, ‘We … we need to tell Dad. This involves him as well, you know.’

‘Yeah,’ Ed agreed. ‘You’re right, as usual. We’ll tell him when he gets home.’ 


End file.
